


Dawnbreak

by BluBooBird



Series: Vu dal Dinok [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Harry Potter, Don't Like Don't Read, Evil(ish) Harry Potter, Foreign Languages, Genocide, Gratuitously Hot Characters, Heavy World Building, Historical Inaccuracy, Hot Gellert Grindelwald, I haven't gotten there yet, Implied/Referenced Suicide, I’m writing this for me, Lots of OC characters, M/M, Magic as a Deity, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Master of Death Harry Potter, Mild Language, Multi, No beta we die like illiterates, Not Beta Read, Open Relationships, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overpowered Harry Potter, Polyamory, Self-Indulgent, Slight Cannibalism, The Author Regrets Nothing, Young Gellert Grindelwald, everything is subject to change, possibly..., read the tags people, sorry if you no like, this really is just self-indulgence, treat this like an early access game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27347032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluBooBird/pseuds/BluBooBird
Summary: "You," she sobbed, finally looking up into its eyes. They were no longer in danger of bursting out of its sockets, the sclera clearing up to only a faint pink, but they were still that horrible green of the killing curse. Only, now they had a shine to them, an almost glow in the shadow of the cave wall they were standing under. It made them look more deadly than they had before."What are you?"It smiled at her, a dazzling thing that almost made her forget what kind of evil lived under its skin. It’s face had filled out more, gaining a softer edge to it that almost made the being look cherubic, that almost hid the spark of cruelty in its eyes, that almost had her smiling back at it.“Dii anhm,” it breathed. “I am the beginning.”Harry is a powerful, immortal being that has been trapped and forgotten beneath the earth for nearly a thousand years. He makes sure his displeasure on being forgotten is widely known, violently.
Relationships: Gellert Grindelwald/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/OMC, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Series: Vu dal Dinok [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997065
Comments: 184
Kudos: 624





	1. Kiinrok

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER:** I don’t own Harry Potter or Skyrim or Dovahzul. If I did, Harry Potter would have ended up a tragic love story, and Skyrim wouldn’t be as broken as it is. The only things I do own are the original or altered characters and the plot.
> 
> I know I have two other works to be working on, but this year has just been a total creativity killer and I’ve had writer’s block and artist’s block practically all year. This little blurb actually helped get me into a more creative mindset, so if working on something new is going to help me then that what I’m gonna do.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys are staying safe and please, please, please! Follow your country’s regulations in regards to the Corona virus. We all want the world to go back to normal.
> 
>  **READ ME:** PLEASE READ THE TAGS.  
> This is going to be a male/male poly relationship fic. I also use a lot of foreign and fantastical languages in this story and I will provide translations for each word and phrase in the end notes. None of this is up for debate to be changed, this is how I want my story. If you don’t like, then don’t read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is basically a very self indulgent idea that came to me after reading a infinite amount of other Harry Potter fanfics all of different qualities and AUs but the biggest contributor is _The Nightmare Man_ by Tiro on fanfiction.net. It's not a literary masterpiece and there's no slash, but I quite enjoyed it and therefore I do recommend you go read it because it has a lot of nice self indulgences in it in the form of Harry giving zero fuks and killing lots of people just because he can. A stellar story, 10/10, I've reread it like four times. It's also complete, so if you don't want to deal with my ' _I've never finished a fanfic in my life'_ BS then go check it out!
> 
>  **NOTE:** I’m heavily pulling customs and culture from Skyrim. So no one quote me on how the Norse or the Slavic lived in ancient times or how they buried their dead because I'm pretty sure that the way I'm writing it is historically incorrect. Do I care? Enough to inform you that I’m being historically inaccurate but not enough to actually dig out my World History notes on Vikings and Britannia. Besides, I think this is more fun than being buried under a boat.
> 
> And I’m butchering not only cultures but also languages at this point as I am using two different dragon language translators as well as making up my own words when I can't find one I like. I'm mostly pulling from the godsend that is Thuum.org but because I'm also slaughtering some of their translations I will be including the translations in the end notes. Depending on if I even finish/abandon this fic I will probably also upload my "translated dictionary" which is basically just a word bank of all the words and phrases I've used thus far as well as a few grammar rules.
> 
> And, as always, this has not been beta read. My lovely beta is currently in their senior year of college, so I'm not gonna bother the with anything for a while. So if you see a mistake, let me know!

**~ Kiinrok ~**

_The "Beginning Word" or Prologue_

* * *

The cavern reached so much deeper than the Department of Magical Artifacts’ Junior Assistant Curator, Elisha Goldfinch, had thought it did. The Norwegian Nordic tomb that her team had gotten the clearance to excavate and catalog was supposed to be a single cavern with just the three sarcophagi of the Magni siblings and the few artifacts and offerings that had survived in their sealed tomb. That was, until one of her workers had accidentally triggered a switch in the floor and opened up a sheer drop into a maze of tunnels below the burial chamber.

Deep below laid several dead end corridors and unfinished rooms in a great hall carved out of the natural rock under the Nordic mausoleum. Most of the unfinished rooms were empty but bore deeply carved, archaic Norse runes of warding and the halls were overstocked with magical curses and boobytraps.

That should have been where she left it. It had been easy dismantling the fraying curses and crumbling traps, but the fact that they’re were so many at all should have been the indicator that she should have left well enough alone and taken her team home. But they had pushed on, collecting the odd artifact or documenting a new Nordic rune. They only stopped when they came to the only sealed door they had encountered since stumbling upon the unfinished labyrinth.

The magic on the circular stone door was stronger, more volatile when they brushed their own against it. It lashed out, draining their cores and nipping at their skin but Elisha was determined to get into the chamber and discover what had been so precious that the ancient Norse mage siblings had it sealed away deep under their final resting place. It took her curse-breaker three days to finally unravel the curses and remove the wardstones cemented into the door and when they opened the chamber her breath was stolen away.

It was a natural cavern, embellished with Nordic pillars and arches to support the ceiling that was pockmarked with erosion, filtering in beautiful patterns of the dappled light of sunrise. Lichen and hanging mosses grew on the damp walls and the faint sound of an unseen waterfall filtered through air like a comforting white noise.

Merlin it was beautiful! The air sang with olde magick, the flora the cavern held were a testimony to the fact as they had changed and adjusted to the heavy magical climate, creating exotically coloured leaves and fascinating glowing fruits and flowers. Elisha had her team collecting samples of everything, every pebble, every bloom, every frond. She, herself, was cataloging everything with her dicta quill, exclaiming excitedly to the feather the wonders that were in the cavern and her amazement that it was still standing considering the heavy erosion that had occurred so deeply in the crust of the earth.

As she wandered further into the cavern, the sounds of the waterfall and her team got quieter and for a moment she thought she heard a rasp, like the whisper of a harsh inhale. She turned, glancing around the darkened niche she had found herself gravitating towards. There was no other sound to indicate someone else standing near her, no rustle of clothing, no crunch of the soft pebbled gravel as weight was shifted underfoot. Just breathing. In and out, and uneven like the person breathing was under some kind of strain.

“Brian?” She whispered, thinking that her sneaky coworker who also doubled as her most recent lover had followed her to scare her and maybe catch a few minutes for a snog, but when the sound disappeared, she brushed it off as a faint draft brushing against the long moss growing from the ceiling. Satisfied with the explanation, she turned back around and let out a shriek of terror, stumbling back as she came face to face with a living corpse.

It wasn’t too tall, nearly her own height and skeleton thin, its pasty, pale skin mottled grey and purple and painfully stretched over its bones and joints. The scraps of cloth it was dressed in might have been white and pristine once but were now a muddy grey and shredded to tatters, like it had rolled around in the gravel. Its hair was a dull grey, snarled and ratty, reaching almost all the way to the floor. Bits of moss and small twigs, likely from some of the small trees that were growing in the cavern, we’re caught in its tangles. But the worst part of the being were the bright Avada Kedavra green eyes that were so bloodshot the sclera was nearly all red, set into the painfully gaunt face with deep bruises forming half circles under them. They pushed tightly against its eyelids, like they were in danger of popping out of its skull. Now that she was aware of it, the sounds of its soft breathing reached her ears once again, a faint whistle added to the raspy exhale as air was pushed through the creature’s nose cavity, creating an eerie tune as it stared her down.

Elisha’s first thought was that it was an inferius but the way it looked at her, the way its eyes seemed to hold an intelligence, told her otherwise. She was completely convinced it couldn’t be a reanimated corpse when it opened its mouth and spoke.

_“Hi los ni aan muhn.”_

Elisha almost managed to work up her courage to talk back to it when a shout pulled her attention away from the being.

“Elisha!”

“Brain!” The woman exclaimed, turning to see her lover rushing up the incline with his wand drawn. 

The man glanced from her to the creature, his eyes widening in shock before he raised his wand and shouted, “Stay back!”

The creature stretched its nearly nonexistent lips in a mockery of a smile.

_“Daar mal reyth vreol los nil vo wah spaan hi pogaas.”_

“I’m warning you!” The man yelled, his echoing words of panic catching the attention of the rest of the team who were now making their way to the couple.

The creature let out a sigh of resignation, at least, Elisha thought it was of resignation. It could have been of frustration or even irritation as the being took a step back and disappeared into the darkness of the converging shadows.

Elisha almost let herself relax when a high pitched scream rang through the cavern, and then another, and then more. It didn’t stop until she had heard all seven of her teammates pleading for mercy and she had to cover her mouth to muffle a sob when the last screech of terror died, leaving the cavernous chamber deathly silent and still.

The light from outside had grown, shining brightly into the cave. The sunny atmosphere was a heavy contrast to the nightmare she had just heard, a terrible juxtaposition. She turned to her lover for support but what she saw made her wail in horror. 

Brain’s eyes were rolled far back into his head, the whites barely standing out against his waxy, pale skin. He was lax, practically falling forward on his feet except that the hand in his chest kept him upright. Blood poured from the opening and from the still beating heart that was clutched in thin fingers that dug into the organ tissue like claws. His body made a solid thud when the hand was yanked back out, heart and all, and the figure that stood in front of her looked nothing like the monster that had walked out of the shadows.

It was still terribly thin, but it had gained some muscle mass and was continuing to fill out right before her eyes as it squeezed the heart tighter, tilting its head back and breathing deeply as if savoring the moment. Its lank and dirty hair was starting to gain a sheen to it, the greying strands filling back into a pitch void and raising as if gaining volume despite the blood heavily splattered through the locks. The bruises and grey spots on the skin were beginning to fade, the epidermis gaining a faint golden hue as the bruises under its eyes began to soften. The breathing was calm and steady now, no whistle sang from its nasal cavities as it took another deep breath before crushing the heart in its grasp and dropping the pulpy mass to the ground with a wet slap.

Elisha stared at the mutilated red mass that had been her lover’s heart, panting heavily as tears started to gather in her eyes. A warm and wet hand caressing her cheek startled her out of her staring, a soft cooing sound piercing through the ringing and loud thumping of her heartbeat in her ears.

“Why,” she whispered, keeping her gaze focused where she knew Brian’s heart was but was now blocked by the monster’s torso. “How could you- what did we do to you?”

The being took another deep breath before a warm, mirth filled voice answered her.

“You and your companions released me from daar rulak horvut, this damnable prison.”

Elisha choked on a cry. The weight of those words felt like a punch to her gut.

She had ignored all the signs: the warding runes, the vicious traps that pointed in the wrong direction, the heavily carved wardstones set into the door. It wasn’t a maze to a mystical treasure, it was a winding labyrinth to keep a monster in its prison, and she had led her team right into it like sacrificial offerings for a vicious deity. She had led them to her deaths.

“Shhh, shhh, hush, dii anhm,” the monster soothed, bringing its other hand - the hand that had crushed the heart - up to the other side of her face, lovingly stroking her cheek with its bloody fingertips. “You have done me aan zok ahmik, a great service. For that, I shall kill you quickly.”

“You,” she sobbed, finally looking up into its eyes. They were no longer in danger of bursting out of its sockets, the sclera clearing up to only a faint pink, but they were still that horrible green of the killing curse. Only, now they had a shine to them, an almost glow in the shadow of the cave wall they were standing under. It made them look more deadly than they had before.

“What _are_ you?”

It smiled at her, a dazzling thing that almost made her forget what kind of evil lived under its skin. It’s face had filled out more, gaining a softer edge to it that almost made the being look cherubic, that almost hid the spark of cruelty in its eyes, that almost had her smiling back at it. 

“Dii ahnm,” it breathed, its hands slowly sneaking around to cup the back of her head. “I am the beginning.” 

Elisha blinked when the smile became sharp, the warm haze that had covered her quickly turning to an icy panic and the hands cupping her skull tightened before a sickening crack filled the cavern, echoing ominously before the monster plunged a hand into the chest of the limp body, jerking it back out and reveling in the feel of hot blood as it splashed over its skin. The heart in its hand gave weak, aborted spasms as it gushed blood. The being let out a sigh of relief as magic flowed into it from the fresh blood, restoring more of its body and healing the damage hundreds of years spent locked deep beneath the earth had wrecked upon his body. 

When he had drained the last of the magic from the woman’s core he squashed the meaty mass of her heart between his fingers, savoring the feeling of the congealing blood oozing through his hand as he breathed in the metallic scent. Dropping the smooshed organ, he raised his hand up to the light, marveling as the sunlight reflected off the ruby liquid and created a red halo around his hand. Slowly, he lowered his hand to his lips, his tongue darting out to swipe at his crimson digits. A moan tore through his throat, bouncing off the walls of the cavern to create a symphony of wet licks and appreciative moans. 

Touch. Smell. Sight. Taste. Hearing. 

A sense of self. 

Things he had been deprived of for so long. 

“Praise to Lahii for the blessing of her mercy and the offering of nine of her children,” he murmured into the silent cavern, pulling more magic from the corpses strewn about. 

By the time he reached the entrance to his prison, he had begun to resemble a more human figure, his body less waiflike and more muscled, his bones no longer visible and his joints no longer creaking. 

The journey through the underground maze was quick as the archeologist that had freed him had dismantled most of the dangers in the tunnels. The few that they hadn’t were easy enough to break through and before he knew it, he was climbing out of his own personal hell. He made a rude gesture to the three sarcophagi guarding the entrance to the maze before scooping up a few of their treasures as a further slight to his jailers. 

Then he was outside, breathing fresh air, basking in the direct light of the sun, feeling the moist squish of the dirt between his toes, hearing the sound of bird calls and the chittering of animals in the undergrowth. 

He was free. 

A breathless laugh broke through his lips, a smile stretching his face painfully as he raised his arms above him and let his laughter overtake him. His first real laugh in a millennium. 

_He was free._

He only took a few more moments to rejoice, relishing in the feeling the wind tangling in his hair and sun kissing his skin before he exhaled deeply. 

There was much to do now. 

Pivoting on the spot, he disapparated, the absence of his laughter the only indication of his departure. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so crash course on pronunciation for you guys (with kudos to blackesparrow for correcting me on pronunciations of vowels vs consonants):
> 
> Words with a single 'i' sound like the 'i' in 'nib'. Words with a double 'ii' sound like a long 'e' like in the word 'heat'. An 'o' is usually pronounced as a short 'o' like in 'ocean'. Double 'oo's are just drawn out short 'o's. A 'u' is pronounced like the double 'oo' like in 'food'. Most 'a's are long and are pronounced like the 'a' in 'father'. The double 'aa' is held longer just like the double 'oo'. If there's an 'a' followed by a double 'ii' it will make a short 'i' like the 'i' in 'ice'. The same goes for the pairing ‘ei’. The 'e's are short and are pronounced like the 'e' in 'pen'. If an 'a' is followed by an 'e' then it turns it into a short 'a' like they 'a' in 'way'.
> 
> Hope that made sense. I can't tell because it's like 5 am here. Let me know if it doesn't. 
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Hi los ni aan muhn - You are not a muggle  
> Daar mal reyth vreol los nil vo wah spaan hi pogaas - That little stick isn't going to protect you much.  
> Daar rulak horvut - this damnable prison  
> Dii anhm - my darling  
> Aan zok ahmik - a great service  
> Lahii - the personification/deity of magic. Magic as an entity.
> 
> I just want you guys to know that there is not a word in Dovahzul for "stick" or "wand" so I had to come up with my own and I did and I think it's fcking hilarious because "wand" in the ancient tongue now translates literally to "tree finger" and I died laughing for like three minutes just looking at the translation for "reyth vreol".


	2. Mii Anhm Aarre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of lore and world building to set the foundations for the rest of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gods above, I'm gonna have to translate so much in this chapter because this is like the introductory to the Ancient Tongue. Why did I do this to myself? ;-;
> 
> Also, don't get used to this lovelies, I hardly update weekly let alone daily. I'm just on a roll with this one.
> 
> Also, also, I’m gonna start doing this thing where I recommend fanfics at the beginning of a chapter because I like supporting other authors. I don’t know if I’ll stick to a theme or just pick ones I think need some love. Anyway, this chapter’s recommendation is _Warning Signs Read Desolation_ by minidraken. It’s a nice Master/Apprentice story between a sane Voldemort and an impressionable eleven-year-old Harry, though it hedges on a paternal relationship between the two. It is unfortunately unfinished, but it has interesting world building, a convincing evolution of feelings and relationships, and plays wonderfully with nature vs nurture.

**~ Mii Anhm Aarre ~**  
_My Precious Servants_

* * *

It was on a warm summer day that Lupa remembered losing her maker, her Mo’ah. It was a day much like the current one was turning out to be: bright sunlight filtering down through the boughs of the trees, few clouds, and a soft breeze. It had been warm, as warm as it could be in the northern territories. It was hardly warm enough to thaw out the layers of snow and ice that covered the land, but after living more than fifty years there, it had been enough to warrant a day of relaxing and lazing about in the heat of the sun for her and the others.

She remembers that Mo’ah had come out of his tent around noon. They had all tensed when he did, waiting for the pain of punishment for slacking in their duties. But he’d merely shook his head, a fond laugh stifled behind the back of his hand before he’d stepped over to where she’d been lounging and had sat beside her, guiding her head onto his lap and carding his elegant fingers through her hair.

 _“I see you are all very hard at work,”_ their master had teased, laughing more when they had all squirmed uncertainly under his scrutiny. She didn’t remember what kind of expression he’d had, Mo’ah hadn’t liked it when they met his eyes without permission, but she wanted to believe that it had been something softer than the blank, icy mask she’d usually seen when she was able to catch glimpses of his face.

She remembered that she had apologized profusely for their laziness, had promised him that they would have double the work done that day, but he had merely sighed and kept her pinned to his lap with a gentle hand tugging on her hair.

 _“It is good to take a break now and again. I have been working you all too hard,”_ he had murmured. His words had sounded mournful and disappointed but not towards them. No, Lupa’d had the distinct feeling that he had been disappointed in himself. 

The very idea had broken her heart; her amazing, powerful Mo’ah, so elegant and thoughtful, disappointed in himself. So she had curled further into his lap, hesitantly wrapping her arms around him as he hummed softly under his breath and continued to comb through her two toned black and silver locks.

That was how it had started.

There hadn’t been any warning, just the tensing of her maker’s fingers in her hair before assailants had burst into the clearing and a battle broke out. Their adversaries had struck quickly, picking off the unprepared by beheading them with silver swords and axes. The initial assault left them reeling but they had quickly regrouped and had started to gain the upper hand. Lupa herself had risen from her place by her master’s side, rushing to her sisters’ and brothers’ aide with a furious howl as she’d lashed out with teeth and claws. They had just begun to drive their attackers off when an inhuman shriek of pain and anger had torn her attention back to her Mo’ah. 

He had been surrounded by three mages she had known well, had considered kin to their cause. They had stood in a triangular formation around him, chanting in the ancient tongue as bright, white tendrils of magic had risen from the earth, sparking like lightning and snaring around her Mo’ah like a young octopus around a prized shell. The magic had pulled him down to the earth, sizzling and snapping as his own magic had fought against it. It had left burns on his exposed skin, had opened the flesh to the air so his powerful blood could pour freely down the tendrils, strengthening their hold. 

The rage she could feel emanating off him in waves of magic was enough to send all but the three mages to their knees. Lupa had barely managed to keep upright, hunched over and supporting herself with her hands, and when she’d taken a step in the direction of her Mo’ah, her vision had blurred. She would have continued her way towards him, to free him from those traitorous mages, but another wave of his magic had sent her to her knees, pressing her down into the dirt and his voice had whispered in her ear.

_“Erei vu alok ont nul.”_

The words had made her choke on a sob. 

It was an olde farewell, one that a speaker only used when they and the recipient would not see each other for a long, long time. It had been a very clear message:

Run away. Survive and wait.

Lupa had bowed her head, gritting her teeth against a mournful howl that had wanted to tear out of her throat. Tears had burned her amber eyes as her master’s magic pushed against her more insistently, this time forcing her back to her feet. For the first time in years, she had met her maker’s eyes, a warm spring green shining with emotion as hot shame spilled from her own.

She’d turned and ran, finishing off any enemy she had found in her way, and dragging her reluctant brothers and sisters with her until they had fled deep into the forest. Only when she could no longer feel the pulsating waves of her maker’s magic had she allowed herself to finally collapse and wail her pain and grief to the world.

That night, as the three traitorous mages had bound and dragged their master away from them, the ones that had survived mourned their failure. They had failed their sisters and brothers whose bodies laid cold and forever empty now that their master could not attend to them, they had failed themselves by allowing the day to pull them into states of complacency, and most importantly, they had failed their Mo’ah who had cut his presence off from them. Lupa had no doubt that it was to spare them the horrifying pain that he would be forced to endure.

As the years had passed, they had regrouped and healed, taking solace in the fact that their master had promised to return. Memories turned into nightmares, nightmares into hallucinations, hallucinations into daydreams. So when she had exited her tent after finishing her afternoon chores, she hadn’t spared a thought for the figure of her maker standing in the middle of the clearing as if he had never left. Oftentimes, she had to convince herself to will away his ghostly apparitions, so desperate to keep even the slightest shred of her Mo’ah around. Today she did not want to will them away. So she let it stand there, let it watch as she spelled the coals and ash back into the dug out pit in the earth they used for fires, let it tilt its head at her as she smiled at it.

And then it did something it had never done before.

“No tears of joy for your Mo’ah, Lupa?”

Lupa froze, staring at the figure of her maker, her god, as an amused smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Mo’ah?” She breathed, barely allowing herself to hope, but his grin grew wider and her heart beat faster in her chest as he spoke yet again.

“Why do you sound so surprised, mii lunhu? Did I not promise to return?”

Lupa could answer with nothing more than the shrillest cry of relief and remorse, uncaring if her shout startled the rest of the clearing. She rushed to his side, falling on her knees before him as she clutched at his tattered robe, sobbing into the dirty cloth as fingers weaved through her hair in a familiar gesture. She was faintly aware that the others had come into the clearing, alerted by her cry. Their murmurs grew louder until they too were kneeling and crying at his feet. Their master’s smooth voice hushed them, flowing over them like the softest caress.

“Hush, mii aarre. Calm yourselves.”

“Mo’ah,” Lupa cried, pressing herself to the ground in a deep bow of contrition. “Mu lost fuhl hi.”

The lightest pressure of too thin fingers lifted her face from the ground, bringing her eyes up to meet her master’s own. They were just as beautiful as she remembered them, warm and green like new spring growth, glowing with an unmistakable power and shone bright from within. Her maker knelt, smiling at her as he wiped her tears from her face, and he was as breathtaking as the day she had first pledged her life to him. Even dressed in rags with his hair in tangles and his skin sallow and sunken, he was the most astonishing being she had ever met.

“Lupa, you and your brothers and sisters did not fail me. You did as I commanded you to. You lived and you waited and you have done a wonderful job of looking after your siblings in my absence. I am nothing but proud of you.”

Lupa had to bite her lip to stifle the wail building in her chest, allowing the soft petting of her master’s fingers to soothe her into a calmer state. When the majority of the servants had calmed down as well, their master stood.

“Now, I believe a bath is in order. New clothes as well, if one of you would, please. Something with fur. And take these to my tent. After I am clean and presentable, we shall feast to celebrate our reunion.”

“Of course, Mo’ah,” Lupa agreed, rising to her feet as well and sending off a handful of her siblings to fulfill their master’s wishes. “Would you like me to send Lukas to attend you?”

Her maker waved her off, already stripping out of his ruined clothing as they walked toward the spring just on the edge of the clearing. “No, I would like to remain alone for the time being. Though, tell him he is welcome to sit with me at the feast.”

Lupa bowed.

“Of course. Enjoy your bath. Please do not hesitate to call for me, Mo’ah.”

A hand on her cheek bid her to look up. She gasped as a soft kiss was pressed to her forehead, blinking furiously as new tears wet her eyes.

“I will be fine, Lupa. Calm yourself. If it will ease you, then sit with me tonight at the feast.”

“Thank you, mii Raii,” Lupa whispered, hesitantly reaching for her master’s had to leave a soft kiss upon it before bowing once more and leaving her Mo’ah to his privacy. 

The water splashed and rippled as he disturbed the surface, the temperature erring just this side of too hot, but to him it felt like heaven. Hundreds of years bathing in the frigid water of the underground river in his magic suppressing prison had made him realize how wonderful both his magic and the natural hot springs he had taken for granted really were. And hundreds of years more, where he had lost the higher functions of his mind and hadn’t seen the point of bathing, made him even more appreciative.

He could feel the heated water opening his pores, washing the filth from his skin as it flowed out of the pool and into the small stream below it. A flick of his fingers had a natural soap drizzling into his hair. He lathered it through his ratty locks, each pass of his fingers releasing a soft pulse of magic that helped untangle the strands from one another. He rinsed and lathered until his hair had finally smoothed out into a sleek waterfall of ebony. A few more swipes and jerks of his hands had the unruly length of his hair more manageable, just above his knees instead of falling around his feet. He pulled it up and expertly twirled it above his head until it sat secured on his crown in a twisted bun before reaching down into the bottom of the pool and scooped up a handful of the silt and mineral deposit, scrubbing it onto his body to remove the dead and flaking skin. He repeated the process until he was satisfied enough to leave the pool, unashamed of his nudity as he walked back to the clearing.

Another of his aarre was waiting for him, a petite boy with golden brown locks and sun kissed skin. The boy bowed low when he approached him, and he smiled as he ran his fingers through the flaxen locks.

“I am happy to see you, Ymir,” he said, smiling softly at the teen.

“Hi yor, Mo’ah,” the boy murmured, the corner of his eyes still wet with tears.

“Show me to my tent, mii diivi?”

Ymir straightened, sniffling slightly before he gestured to one of the bigger tents in the clearing.  
He moved silently across the glade, smiling at all his aarre moving to and fro, taking note on how Ymir followed after him like a scared child. He sighed as he opened the drape to his tent, snapping his fingers to light a small fire in the pit at the center of cleared ground. Another two snaps dried his hair and body as he took a seat on the pallet of furs and blankets that served as his bed.

Ymir had hesitated at the entrance, only stepping in when he curled his arm in a motion of welcome to the teen.

“Come, Ymir, help me dress,” he said, waving his hand in the air to summon his white bone hair comb.

The teen quickly complied, setting the clothes he had been carrying at the edge of the pallet and settling behind his master with a practiced movement that spoke of familiarity.

He breathed out happily as the comb was drawn through his hair, the magic imbued in the comb teeth softening his locks and adding a shine to the black strands. When his hair was smooth and silky, Ymir took small handfuls of it, braiding them artfully and then pulling it all over his shoulders in an equal split without being told to.

“You remember how I like my hair,” he remarked, smiling at the boy.

Ymir blushed, nodding his head demurely before he stood and offered his hand to help his maker up.  
Ymir dressed him deftly, pulling a layered, fur collar around his neck and over his torso, fastening the leather straps around his waist to leave the back open. A double slit, wool lined skirt was slipped over his legs, quickly secured in place by a thin leather belt. Ymir has begun to pull out accessories and embellishments, but he stopped him with a wave of his hand.

“I am fine in just this tonight. These are twice the luxury of my last pair,” he explained, smoothing away the teen’s flinch with a caress to his cheek. “As I told Lupa, I hold none of you responsible for my capture. I am just glad to be home with you, diivi.”

Ymir gave a small nod, sighing in content when he placed a soft kiss on the boy’s forehead before bidding him to follow out of the tent.

A fire had been lit in the middle of the open clearing, large enough to feel the heat from the edge of his tent and his aarre were all beginning to gather, dressed in warm furs and loose wool pants or slit skirts like his own. He made his way to them, place a hand on Ymir’s head to dismiss him as he walked around the circle of his aarre, giving them reassuring touches and soft caresses until he reached his seat. It was made up of two sizable furs, one folded to cushion the ground and the other rolled and shaped around the other to create the back and arms of a seat. He remained standing however, unsurprised to see his aarre all waiting for him before they relaxed, and opened his arms to them in welcome.

“Mii aarre, how long it has been since last I have last seen you. Hear me and know I have missed you all greatly,” he spoke, letting his magic wash over his aarre and connect them to him once again. “The day of my capture was a terrible day, one of great loss. Tonight we will honor your fallen brothers and sisters, but we will also honor you. 

"Mii bruhn aarre, we feast tonight in honor of your loyalty and strength! How proud I am of you all for surviving that day and waiting for my return. The muhnne have not defeated us! Now that I have returned, we shall continue our work and lead our brothers and sister in magic back onto the correct path, striking a blow to the muhnne that they will never forget!”

Cheers met his declaration, the magic of his aarre popping and snapping in the air as they howled into the slowly descending night. He let himself bask in the joy of his aarre before he brought his hands together in a great feat of magic. The space around the fire bloomed with plates and bowls filled with cooked meats and fresh fruits, steamed vegetables and clear broths, braised fish and baked desserts. Pitchers of wine and flagons of beer hovered in the air, floating over to goblets and steins when they were raised above the heads of their owners.

Satisfied with the lifted spirits of his aarre, he allowed himself to gracefully collapse into his seat, accepting the goblet of wine that Lupa passed to him.

“An inspiring speech, Mo’ah. One filled with nihee rotte.”

“At least I know I have not lost my forked tongue while living like a mole,” he joked, happily sipping his wine as he watched his aarre revel, taking note of how Lukas was nowhere in sight. He turned his attention to Lupa when she knelt next to him, her plate mostly empty and her goblet dry. “You are still as much of a killjoy as when I first met you.”

“If I recall correctly, I was not in a state to be anything else.”

“I’m sure you could have mustered up some energy to do more than lay on the floor while I killed your parents.”

“Mo’ah, you are incorrigible.”

“Hmm, perhaps I am,” he agreed, hiding his smile in his goblet. “Now tell me, mii lunhu, what year is this?”  


“You ask like you do not know.”

“Mii anhm, I have been trapped in a cave for what I assume has been the past thousand years. One tends to stop keeping track of the date after reaching 500 years.”

“Most would have stopped around a hundred, Mo’ah.”

“Most would be dead after a hundred years, Lupa. Now, the date, mii lunhu.”

“It’s been 963 years since your capture, Mo’ah.”

“I thought you said you would not count past one hundred,” he laughed. She huffed, shoving a plate of meat and fruit into his hands. He accepted it with good humor, nibbling on a meat skewer while he added the years in his head. “Hmm, that’s a few centuries less than I thought it was. So... 1995 then?”

Lupa nodded, letting her master mull the information over while she refilled his goblet.

“1995... oh,” he murmured. “He would be about fifteen now. What day is it?”

“The twenty seventh of June, Mo’ah.”

“Yes, fifteen in about a month... I wonder how he’s doing.”

“Would you like me to find out?”

“No, I will leave him be for now. He should be at- at-... hmm. Well, if what I remember stays true, he will be at the headquarters of the Order soon, so you will not be able to get to him, regardless. They already seem to have a Fidelius activated since I am incapable of giving you the name of their residence.”

“Then, would you like to know anything else?”

He hummed, twirling the now empty skewer in his hand before throwing it like a dark into the fire. It crackled with his magic, sending up sparks of tiny ember dragons and phoenixes, drawing excited gasps and cheers from his aarre. “Yes, tell me about Lein and lahsosse. What has happened since I’ve been gone? What have I missed?”

“You have missed much, Mo’ah,” Lupa informed him, keeping her voice low. “Britannia used to be the seat of an empire but has since relinquished most of its control on its colonies. There are muhnne on every continent of the Earth and they invented a power called electricity. It is like lightning, but in the earth, and it powers their creations that they call machines. They have many different kinds too: ones that fly, ones that swim, and ones that run on land. And then there have been two wars between different nations of the muhnne that have spanned the entire earth. They have created weapons of mass destruction that erode cities and scorch the earth, leaving waves of heat behind them that destroy the flora and fauna. And more and more lahsosse have decided to mix with them, befriending them and welcoming them into our world.”

“I see,” he hummed, letting the information refresh his memory of man’s innovation and the two world wars. “What of the lahsosse?”

“Those four mages from Britannia that you mentored and helped in building a school had a disagreement a little after your capture. One decided to take Lahii’s teachings to an extreme, wanting to bar all ofanne lah from gaining mastery over their lah, and has created dissent within the ranks of lahsosse.”

“Yes, Salazar would have, the stubborn fool,” he sighed, not surprised at that particular event but saddened nonetheless. “They have since passed on, I assume.”

“They have, Mo’ah. I’m sorry.”

“Dinok is but the next great adventure, Lupa. Continue.”

“Yes, mii Raii. There was a warlock who graduated from the school who ended up in the service of one of Britannia’s kings. He was very powerful but was in favor of befriending the muhnne and so we never made contact with him. There was a sorceress also in the king’s court who showed promise, but she disappeared before we could speak to her and was never found again. After the school in Britannia was founded, four more have been founded in Europe though only two of the four exist today, one in France and the other somewhere here in the northern territories. The northern school is unplottable, the French one is not. There have been wars within the lahsosse as well, many involving creatures, since your disappearance. Many of your creations have been hunted into extinction though many have left descendants of different species. Dragons around the world are endangered and many species have gone extinct. Currently there are fourteen reservations for the protection and conservation of their kind. The Britannian government has seized control of the dementors and have stationed them at their prison. They did not complain much when I inquired if the arrangement suited them but still...”

“The dementors were made to behave like aloof kneazles,” he informed, waving off her concern. “They will be fine most anywhere that has an ample supply of food.”

“I see. I have also continued to monitor the vampire covens and werewolf packs. About two hundred years after your capture, a hybrid was created through copulation between a female vampire and a male werewolf in Russia. The female’s sire was not pleased and, I believe, threatened by the hybrid’s existence. He destroyed the hybrid along with his child by burning them alive through exposure to the sun. This has created a feud that has spanned across many covens and packs and through generations. I believe no remaining werewolves recall the reason for the feud, but I believe there are a few vampires left that do and still fear the creation of a hybrid. I have not interfered for worry of our safety.”

“You made the right choice,” he mumbled, tapping his finger against his glass angrily. “It seems I shall have to pay mii dusos _kiirre_ a visit to establish order _yet again_. What else?”

“Many of your other creatures still live today, if not slightly evolved, which is to be expected due to natural selection. These creatures include sirens, hydra, thunderbirds, lamia, sphinxes, bogarts, and lethifolds. Most have descendant species that range all across the world. Your original flying serpent has become extinct, but a few of its descendants migrated around the word and have become different species, the occamy is the most common in Europe and there is the quetzalcoatl which has flourished in South America. The only creature I have not checked on is the world serpent due to the difficulty of reaching it.”

“I would have been astounded if you had visited her and lived, Lupa. You need not concern yourself over Jörmun. She’s fine where she is. Is there anything else I should know about lahsosse?”

“Yes. Of the many wars the most recent two have been mostly between lahsosse, with a few vampires, werewolves, and dementors mixed in. They were over the dissent that I mentioned earlier. The first war was lead by a man named Gellert Grindelwald and the second by a man who goes by Lord Voldemort. Grindelwald’s war was less about the extermination of muhnne and more about establishing a new order in which lahsosse ruled over muhnne. Voldemort’s aim was much the same though he also held prejudice againsts ofanne lah much like your apprentice did and had no qualms in killing muhnne. Then again, he did not seem to have many qualms about killing in general, nor whether his victims were muhnne or lahsosse. Grindelwald is still alive, confined within his own prison in Austria. It is unclear if Voldemort is alive as there was an officially decreed end to his war in 1981 after his partially failed assault on the Potter family. He has not been seen since and the mark he used to signify his followers has disappeared from many who were known to fight for him.”

“Interesting,” he hummed, smiling as a few of his aarre bid him goodnight. “I want you to keep an eye open for Voldemort. See if you can single out his more trusted followers. Watch them. I want eyes on the Order as well, not all of them, just the more prominent members: Albus Dumbledore, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Alastor Moody. Send someone who is good at spying without lah to watch Moody. He has a charmed eye and a foe glass. When gravuun comes I want an eye on Harry Potter.”

“Of course, Mo’ah. Is there anything else you would like for me to do?”

He turned to face her, studying her respectfully averted gaze before reaching over to bring her eyes level with his own. “ Meet my eyes, Lupa. Take your rightful place as my guiding hand and hold your head high. You have earned the right to.”

With that he stood, placing one last gentle caress to her cheek before making his way across the clearing, bidding the rest of his aarre goodnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I like how abruptly this ends, but this was how the cookie crumbled so, oh well. 🤷🏻
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Mo'ah - Maker (mother)  
> Mii lunhu - my wolf  
> Mu lost fuhl hi - We have failed you.  
> mii Raii - my god  
> Hi yor, Mo’ah - You as well, Maker (returning the sentiment)  
> Mii diivi - my sparrow  
> Muhnne - muggles  
> Mii aarre - my servants (those who serves out of duty or loyalty)  
> Mii bruhn aarre - my wonderful servants  
> Nihee rotte - honeyed words  
> Mii anhm - my darling/treasure/precious  
> Lein - world, the world, Mundus  
> Lahsos(se) - wixen, witch, wizard, magical people (literally magic blood)  
> Ofanne lah - gifts of magic (muggleborns)  
> Dinok - death  
> Mii dusos kiirre - my vampire children  
> Gravuun - autumn
> 
> I would like to note that kiir(re) does not mean child in the literal sense. It refers to anything one is responsible for creating or giving life to. Also, Lupa and the other aarre refer to each other as siblings in the sense of shield-siblings or comrades. There are a few who are related, but the majority are not.
> 
> There are also a lot of repeating words and variations of repeating words, so I thought I'd include this as well.
> 
> **Rules:**
> 
> Plurals: repeat the last letter and add an ‘e’. If the word ends in a double vowel, take off the last letter, follow the original rule and then add ‘he’. If a words ends in a single vowel, follow original rule and add “he”.
> 
> Example: aar - servant aarre - servents  
>  lunhu - wolf lunhuuhe - wolves
> 
> Possessives: add a suffix to the noun that is being possessed. Possessive suffixes should not be added to nouns that end in a vowel. The only exception to this rule is the suffix ‘iil’ which can be used with nouns that end in ‘ii’ and only applies to the possessive term for ‘your/their’ or ‘his/hers/its’. Suffixes: my - i, your/their - iil, his/hers/its - ii, our - u
> 
> Example: servant - aar my servant - aari
> 
> If you have any questions, or if I missed a translation, leave me a comment!


	3. Pogaan Vul Thur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News of the tomb slaughter makes it back to magical Britain. Meanwhile, our favorite god pays a visit to a possible ally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so, I really didn't expect people to like this as much as you guys do. I was like... expecting a maximum of 50 kudos and like no comments bc admittedly, this isn't top tier writing for me. I have been pleasantly proven wrong and have thus, written you another chapter earlier than I was planning to.
> 
> Also, if you're in the US, please stay safe! This presidential election seems to be getting out of hand, and there have already been reports of people trying to instigate violence. Don't walk alone at night and please don't rise to any baiting. It's what they want.
> 
> Anyways, this chapter’s fanfiction recommendation is the series _[Like a Ghost in My Town](https://archiveofourown.org/series/260551)_ by [Batsutousai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsutousai/pseuds/Batsutousai)! It’s only two installments but they’re pretty long and both complete. They feature a Master of Death Harry who goes back in time to fix a timeline and relive his childhood. It’s one of my favorite series, I highly recommend it!

**~ Pogaan Vul Thur ~**  
_Another Dark Lord_

* * *

Harry stared down in horror at the front page of the Daily Prophet. Normally, at least for him, such an occurrence wasn't uncommon when it came to the speculative and often vulgar articles written in the newspaper; there was always something on the front page that garnered a grimace or a grim frown. But the carnage described by the journalist - not Rita Skeeter for once, thankfully - was by far the most gruesome Harry had read about in the newspaper to date.

Beside him, looking over a shoulder each, Ron and Hermione were reading along, both sporting expressions that he was sure matched his own: wide eyes, slack mouths, pallid skin. Harry found he couldn’t fault them. The title alone made him sick to his stomach.

**_Nine Ministry Officials Found Dead and Dismembered in Norse Tomb_ ** __

_By Lara Edgecomb_

__

_Earlier this year the Junior Assistant Curator from the Department of Magical Artifacts, Elisha Goldfinch, and her team of eight magiarchaeologists were cleared to excavate an ancient Nordic tomb that was believed to be the final resting place of the well known and revered Magni triplets, located in an unplottable forest in southern Norway. The permit was approved for three months and the team was scheduled to return at the beginning of July but when the allotted time came to an end, Goldfinch and her team never returned to the British Embassy of Magic in Oslo for their departure. After twenty-four hours, all nine were declared missing and a search was organized for the missing party. As the tomb and surrounding forest are unplottable, it took Norwegian aurors three days to reach the excavation site._

_Both the outside of the tomb and the inside of the burial chamber showed signs of the team having occupied and cataloged the space but many of their effects were missing. The search continued well into the night and it was only through happenstance that the Norwegian aurors were able to locate an extensive system of tunnels underneath the burial chamber. They spent another day searching the tunnels for the archeology team, making note of many dismantled curses and traps spread throughout the tunnels. When they got to the last room, the hope they had begun to lose of finding the team alive was gone._

_Of the twelve aurors I asked for an interview, only one would describe the scene to me. The auror’s name will be redacted for reasons of circumspection. Note that the following descriptions are graphic and may be inappropriate for younger readers._

_This is our conversation._

_Lara: Thank you for agreeing to meet with me._

_[Redacted]: ..._

_Lara: Can you tell me what walking into the last chamber was like for you and your colleagues?_

_[Redacted]: Like a nightmare. The smell was first: metallic and strong. Rotten meat. It was dark. We sent light to the ceiling. I wish we hadn’t._

_Lara: Why is that?_

_[Redacted]: In the dark, it only looked like wet earth. But the lights made it red. Blood, from the doorway to the back of the cavern._

_Lara: And how big was the cavern?_

_[Redacted]: Twenty meters at most. It was taller than it was wide._

_Lara: Was there only blood?_

_[Redacted]: No. The bodies were there. They were everywhere._

_Lara: Can you explain?_

_[Redacted]: Strewn about. Parted and broken._

_Lara: They were dismembered?_

_[Redacted]: That is one way to describe it._

_Lara: And how would you describe it?_

_[Redacted]: … Savaged. Whatever killed them, killed them slowly. And enjoyed it._

_Lara: You don’t know what killed them?_

_[Redacted]: No._

_Lara: … Do you have an idea?_

_[Redacted]: No. I do not._

_Lara: … That’s fine. Let’s readdress the bodies. I was led to believe that there was one that was mutilated postmortem._

_[Redacted]: And?_

_Lara: I would like to know if it’s true._

_[Redacted]: ... Her neck was snapped._

_Lara: Was the break uneven?_

_[Redacted]: No... it was a clean break. Her body was left untouched except for one mutilation._

_Lara: And the only part of her that was mutilated?_

_[Redacted]: ... Her heart._

_Lara: Would you say that all the victims’ hearts were the main source of mutilation as well?_

_[Redacted]: I- no. I will not answer that. I am done. You have your story. I am done._

_Lara: Just one more question, please._

_[Redacted]: ... One more. Then enough._

_Lara: Thank you. Did you or any of your companions find traces of dark magic in the cavern?_

_[Redacted]: Dark magic is Olde magic._

_Lara: That isn’t a no._

_[Redacted]: ... Yes. There was a heavy concentration of Dark magic in the cavern. Now please, enough._

_Lara: Of course. Thank you for your time._

_For more on the ongoing investigation, see pg 9  
For the other aurors’ transcripts, see pg 12.  
For more on Elisha Goldfinch and the DoMA, see pg 4.  
For Obituaries, see pg 23._

“Merlin,” Ron breathed, slumping back on the couch when he’d finished reading.

Harry could only nod along in agreement.

“The journalist is Marissa’s mom isn’t it? Marisa Edgecomb?” Hermione mumbled, almost to herself. “She was in that attack at the beginning of the summer, the one Fudge is calling an unfortunate accident. Do you think she was asking about dark magic because of that? Do you think it could be- V-Voldemort?”

“Well it makes sense doesn’t it?” Ron said, near frantic. “‘They were killed slowly, and whatever did it enjoyed it’. If that’s not You-Know-Who, I don’t know what is!”

“But what about the one he didn’t kill slowly? Her neck was broken,” Harry murmured. “That doesn’t fit his MO.”

“You think it was a mercy kill?” Hermione asked.

“What,” Ron exclaimed, turning to Harry. “Mate, are you serious? Her heart was ripped out of her chest!”  
“After she was dead, Ron. Voldemort doesn’t do things post mortem,” Harry reasoned, glancing over to the closed door of the kitchen where the Order was currently meeting.

“You think... I-it could have been an animal. Some kind of dark creature!”

“There are plenty of dark creatures that are humanoid, Ronald.” Hermione scoffed, though it came out rather choked.

“Harry, come on. One Dark Lord is bad enough. Please don’t tell me we have to deal with another one, ” Ron moaned, flopping back with his arm sling over his eyes. “I really don’t want to deal with another one.”

Harry didn’t answer him, just continued to stare down at the paper still clenched in his hands, furrowing his eyebrows. He didn’t know the answer to his friends’ questions, he usually didn’t. The only thing he did know was that he really didn’t want to deal with another Dark Lord either.

ϟ ϟ ϟ

It was warmer in Austria than he thought it would be. Windier too, though it was a nice reprieve from the heat of the sun as it breezed through the long strands of his ebony hair. He had left it down for his journey at Lupa’s insistence, to keep his ears and neck warm. A little redundant, considering he hardly felt the chill of snow and ice anymore, but he hadn’t put up much of a fight when she’d forced thick cotton trousers under his typical double slit skirt and had secured soft woolen arm warmers under his haltered fur top. He had drawn a line at the heavy snow boots she had presented to him with a flat look, only managing to dodge her nagging by pulling a winter cloak around his shoulders, followed by a fox fur scarf Ymir had sneakily wrapped around his neck.

At that point, he’d been resigned. Even if he didn’t feel the cold, the actions of his aarre were appreciated as they were only trying to provide for him and assure themselves that they were still needed. So while it may have been hot under all his layers, he endured it and may have even started to enjoy it as he continued his trek up the steadily cooling path of the Austrian Alps.

He had been walking for two days, a long journey up the mountain that was unfortunately unavoidable due to the nature of where he was traveling to. Or perhaps, more accurately, due to the nature of _who_ he was traveling to. Huffing in exasperation, he dismantled yet another weakly powered concealment charm, smirking triumphantly as an immense, black tower began to shimmer into existence. 

Nurmengard.

It was beautiful: roughly half the size of the mountain, nestled snugly into a ravine on the side of the mountain face. It’s dark, jet-black stones were shaped to make the building look like an obelisk, reaching out just past the crest and creating an imposing silhouette against the fading light of the setting sun, an arch traveling nearly all the way up the front, bisecting the building. He reminded himself to reward his aarre when he got back. It had taken them nearly three weeks to narrow down its general whereabouts and then another week to pinpoint its exact location.

And that wasn’t all he’d been having them do. After making sure they were still up to par with his expectations in both physical and magical combat, he had drilled stealth tactics and healing into them as well. When he was finally satisfied with their progress, he sent his most skilled out to spy on his potential enemies and allies both. Two reports had been sent back before the month of July had ended, one on an article in Britannia of his escape from his underground prison and one of Voldemort’s death eaters, Bartimus Crouch Junior.

Crouch was apparently spending quite a lot of time running around Britannia despite the numerous articles from various sources claiming him dead, whispering in the ears of many powerful creatures as well as certain wixen, despite all of Britannia’s wizarding population knowing he was dead. Either more people were in on the fact that Crouch wasn’t dead or he had a way to keep their mouths shut. Either way, the information was definitely something to look into further, but not something he was overly concerned about yet.

No, what he was concerned about now was standing in front of him, tall and majestic and glorious. It was a shame it would remain empty after today. Perhaps he would take control of it later and use it for its intended purpose. Or perhaps he’d use it to hold any remaining muhnne that survived his initial purge. Sacrificial bodies were always in high demand after all.

He shook his head as he made his way to the stairs, tapping the sole of his foot on a step twice to get them to move upward. He had only been back for a month and he was was already working on too many projects. He really didn’t need another distracting him.

There was only one room at the apex of the tower, directly in front of the stair landing. It was dimly lit, with a window too small for a man to crawl out of, but big enough for an animal to squeeze through. From the corner of his eye, he could see what looked like a bed, hewn from the same rock as the building, with a thin mattress on top and an even thinner blanket. It brought memories of a pitiful childhood with a scratchy cot and a threadbare blanket to the forefront of his mind, eliciting a disgusted curl of his lips. 

Oh, but Fate thought she was so hilarious.

The door to the room was gone, replaced by spelled iron bars that radiated what he assumed was supposed to be a painful chill when he got too close to them. He ignored the faint sensation and peered further into the room, his luminescent eyes finally alighting on a body curled up in a shadowed corner.

It was frail, not as frail as his had been when he’d been released from his own prison, but frail enough to be concerning for a mortal. His skin was pallid and wrinkled, his hair nearly gone save for two wisps of grey at his temples. His clothing was nothing more than an old robe, dusty and molding in places where it was damp with the perspiration of the cold stone floor and his feet were bare and tinted blue from the cold. 

Gellert Grindelwald: the fallen Dark Lord. 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Grindelwald said suddenly, his hoarse and croaky voice interrupting his observations. “Have you come to kill me, Tom?”

He tilted his head, faintly intrigued.

It had been quite some time since he’d been compared to Voldemort. Not since his youth, in fact. That he was being mistaken for the Dark Lord now, after all these years... perhaps their magic was still nearly identical, even after the other’s soul had been brutally forced from his person. It was an interesting notion, but it didn’t mean he enjoyed being mislabeled.

“While I’m sure Tom plans on it, I don’t think he’s quite yet desperate enough to come looking for the Death Stick or your neck.”

Grindelwald’s head shot up, and he noted with interest that his shocked eyes were two different colors: an icy blue and a shadowy brown. His body was tense for only the briefest moment before he quickly forced his limbs into a relaxed calm that showed only a hint of caution. It would have been convincing if not for the tightness in his enchanting, two-toned eyes.

“And who might you be?” Grindelwald asked after a brief strain of silence, one where they had both taken to studying one another.

“To the world, I am a lost relic. To you? Perhaps your key to freedom.”

Grindelwald eyed him for a moment, taking in his windswept hair and bare feet before leaning back into the corner he was sat in. “You don’t look like much.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is that an insult?”

Grindelwald grinned. “An observation.”

“A poor one, then,” he said, unamused. “You should know by now to judge a snake not by the vibrancy of its scales but by the venom that drips from its fangs, just before it strikes you.”

Grindelwald raised a hairless brow. “Are you going to strike me?”

“That depends on you.”

They fell into silence, both using the lull in conversation to study each other once again. Grindelwald was eyeing him with a wary look while he himself was noting the minute shivers that wracked the man’s body. Mercifully, he flicked his fingers out, settling a warming charm onto the wrinkled man. The faintest widening of eyes betrayed Grindelwald’s astonishment before they narrowed back into something sharper.

“Who are you?”

“I have many names, gifted to me from many people,” he deflected, a smile tugging on his lips at the frustrated look the man gave him. “Most forgotten due to the tongues they were spoken in no longer existing.”

“A relic, lost to time,” Grindelwald repeated, his expression becoming thoughtful.

“Yes,” he agreed, his smile broadening to show the faintest hint of sharp teeth.

Grindelwald hummed, “So what do you call yourself, then?”

“I don’t,” he answered simply, waving a hand at the other’s bemusement. “A name is a mortal construct that people assign to others so that they might categorize them into what they perceive them to be: male, female, wixen, creature. It all has the same purpose: to tuck something neatly into a labeled box. I am not something that can be neatly tucked away and forgotten about. I am power and reason. I am fear and awe. I am an emanation and therefore have no need for a name.”

Grindelwald gave a slow blink, the incomprehension bleeding from his very skin, to which the raven haired man mused, “I suppose I should not have expected you to comprehend transcendence. You are, after all, still mortal.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“It was merely an observation,” he stated, throwing the man’s earlier words back at him. “Though, I suppose it could be taken as a mockery. You did, after all, come so close to your own brand of immortality, but when you were confronted with a familiar face you let everything you’d worked so hard for crumble into dust.”

Grindelwald gave a snarl, facing away from the bars as he slowly settled back into his corner with a detached expression. “You know nothing of what you speak of.”

“Perhaps I don’t,” he conceded. When Grindelwald didn’t answer him, he pushed on. “And perhaps you ask a valid question. While I personally do not feel the need to have a name, it will likely be a lesser of two evils if I name myself rather than letting my enemies name me. You may call me Eos.”

“ _Eos?_ ” Grindelwald scoffed, finally turning back to face him.

“You asked me for a name. This is one that I believe fits me,” Eos hummed, leaning against the frame of the prison doorway. “And even then, it’s not a perfect fit. I need no name to know who I am, my followers don’t need a name to call me to know I am their master, and people will fear me, even without a name. But history will no doubt assign one to me, regardless of my feeling on the matter, so I chose one that I can tolerate.”

The two went back to their silent staring, Eos relaxed and Grindelwald pensive if not somewhat put out. They stayed like this long enough that Eos had to recast the warming charm on the other three more times before Grindelwald finally broke the silence.

“How much does the key to freedom cost?”

Eos tilted his head. “How much is freedom worth to you?”

Ice and shadow glared at him as the man pressed his lips into a thin line, a physical refusal to answer. Eos only grinned back. The wizard could be smart when he wanted to be, it seemed. After a moment of thought, Eos spoke, “Pledge your magic to mine.”

The man gave a sharp laugh. “You want me to fight? I may still have my magic, weak as it is, but it will do you no good if I can’t even stand on a battlefield.” He opened his robes, briefly revealing how frail he really was.

“Your physical health is remedied easily enough. Your magic will perhaps prove more difficult to restore, but not by much.”

“Freedom, improved health, and restored magic, all for an oath of fealty?” Grindelwald asked skeptically.

“And more,” Eos purred, his tone taking a teasingly lilt. “I believe we briefly discussed your failed grab for immortality.”

Grindelwald’s breath caught in his throat, his posture straightening. “You lie.”

Eos chuckled. “How rude. I promise that everything I have said is nothing less than the truth.”

“I have dedicated my life to finding the means to immortality,” Grindelwald stated. “There was only ever one sure way that I found.”

“Perhaps there is only one sure way, without the aid of another,” Eos countered. “The Hallows are a headache at the very least, in my personal opinion. You should count yourself lucky that you only succeeded in finding one of them.”

Grindelwald opened his mouth, a haughty retort on his tongue, when an echoing shout rang through the tower, interrupting him and drawing their attention to the stairs just a few feet away.

“You didn’t dispose of the guards?” Grindelwald asked incredulously.

Eos shrugged, unbothered. “I am of the opinion to not waste magical life. There are so few of us left in this day and age. Now, about that oath, mii vul kro. A general oath can be made for now, as I believe our time is running short.”

Grindelwald growled at the smug look the other gave him, narrowing his eyes as the shouts grew louder.

“Fine,” the man spat, glaring daggers at Eos as he ground out a basic oath of fealty. “I swear unto you, Eos, my magic, my loyalty, and my life. So I will it, so mote it be.”

Eos smiled, closing his eyes and giving a pleased hum as the magic of the oath settled around them, binding them to each other. It was dark, darker than most magic he’d felt in a long time, and heady: a twining caress over his core that hinted at the selfish nature it held and the strength it used to have. He couldn’t savor it for long though, as another shout reminded him that they were on a bit of a tight schedule.

With a sigh, Eos straightened, sweeping his hand through the air and towards the icy bite of the spelled bars but instead of connecting solidly with metal, his fingers passed through them like they were smoke, disrupting their form and dispelling them like they were made of nothing more than pockets of morning mist that evaporated in the sun’s light. Soon, there was nothing between them but a few feet of empty air.

Grindelwald had stood, filled with barely concealed awe at the casual show of such powerful magic, but before he could even think of moving towards his newly opened cell door, Eos took three quick steps and pushed him down, forcing him to kneel with a harsh grip on the frail man’s neck.

“What-!” Grindelwald hissed, clawing uselessly at the other’s hands as his words were silenced with lips against his own, drawing a surprised gasp from him that Eos used to his advantage, pressing his tongue into the open mouth to keep it open. Grindelwald grunted angrily, thrashing weakly under Eos’s hold and biting down harshly on his tongue. Eos didn’t even flinch. Grindelwald gave a few more aborted jerks, trying to separate their mouths as his own steadily filled with blood until he was in danger of choking, forcing him to swallow the mouthful of coppery plasma before immediately being forced to swallow again, a rush of coolness flowing down his throat to chase the sticky heat of the blood, numbing his tongue and tingling in his gut as he finally understood what was happening.

He didn’t fight the next mouthful of icy liquid, swallowing greedily again and again as magic began to course through his veins, nearly crowing in joy as his body began to return to its youthful strength: his muscles filled in, tightening his skin as his wrinkles smoothed out. His scalp itched as his hair grew back in, thick and healthy. His bones creaked and his joints popped as they were restrengthened, the cartilage and marrow restored.

When Eos pulled back, gone was the frail old man with baggy skin and withering hair. In his place was a handsome man who looked to be somewhere in his late twenties, with high cheekbones and fair skin and rosy lips that shone with spit, his aristocratic face framed by gold spun hair that fell just past his shoulders in soft waves. The only aspect that hadn’t changed were his ice and coffee coloured eyes that stared up at him with greed. Predicting his surge upward, Eos tightened his hand around the other’s neck, heated lips just barely brushing his own before Grindelwald was forced back down, his knees connecting to the stone with a loud crack. Eos grinned when the man didn’t even grunt in pain, his two-toned eyes almost manic as they stared up at him unblinkingly.

“Patience, mii vul kro,” he murmured, running the fingers of his free hand over the bottom lip of his newest follower. “You have to prove you’re worthy of a second kiss.”

“Do you promise a second kiss to all of your faithful?” Grindelwald purred, his voice melodic and sinful as he slipped a finger into his mouth, nipping it harshly before soothing it with his tongue, only letting it go when it was gently tugged away.

Eos smirked at the breathy tone, leaning forward teasingly so that they were scant inches apart. His hair fell around them like a curtain, obscuring the dim light even more while their breath mingled together as he answered, “Only those who deserve it.”

Grindelwald gave an audible swallow, his eyes shining hungrily as he strained once more against the hand holding him in place, his soft lips leaving the faintest of touches against Eos’s own before they were interpreted yet again.

“Halt!”

Eos clicked his tongue in irritation, straightening from his position over Grindelwald. He supposed that was what he got for not moving their flirting back to his territory. Turning to face the guard with a cool smile, ignoring the wand leveled at his chest, he said sweetly, “Ich werde jetzt deinen Gefangenen freilassen.”

“Ich sagte halt!”

“Bitte senken Sie Ihren Zauberstab und ich verspreche Ihnen zu leben.” 

When the guard looked like he would fire off a spell, Eos darted forward, snaking his arm around the guard’s. He yanked, sending the man off balance, and when his leg was exposed he brought his foot down hard on his tibia. The man shrieked out an ear splitting scream as his bone snapped in half, piercing through his muscles and out through his skin. Blood was already pooling on the stone floor when he was carelessly dropped, whimpering as the impact jarred his broken leg.

“I forget how stupidly self-sacrificing wixen can be,” Eos muttered, stepping over the man to return to Grindelwald, who was now standing and had been admiring the show. “You’d think they’d understand when they’re magically outmatched and choose life over death when given the choice, yet every time I’m proven wrong.”

Grindelwald raised a full brow at him before turning back to the guard who was clutching at his leg and cursing quietly. “You didn’t kill him.”

Eos blinked, following his gaze. “Oh.”

Reaching out his hand, palm down, he curled it in a claw-like motion, twisting his wrist so his palm was face up. The guard convulsed, a heaving gurgle leaving his throat before a bloody blob began to nudge its way out of the man’s lips, the pumping organ adding to the puddle of crimson the man was lying in. When it was finally free, it soared through the air and into Eos’s hand, splattering the walls and their clothes and dripping dark ruby onto the floor. Grindelwald gave a choked laugh as Eos crushed the heart between his fingers before tossing it out of the room, the organ disappearing down the stairs much to the horror of the other guards as they screamed in alarm.

“There,” he said simply, shaking his hand in a futile attempt to remove the blood from it. “Now I killed him.”

“You are a strange creature,” Grindelwald informed him, his gaze both appreciative and bemused. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or if you’re treating everything you say as one big joke.”

“Well, you will have an eternity to figure it out.” Eos chuckled lowly, reaching his clean hand up to tangle his fingers into Grindelwald’s hair and tug him closer, the taller man's hands reaching out to steady himself on Eos’s hips. “For now, I’d say it’s about time we take our leave.”

Grindelwald grinned at the prospect of finally leaving his cell, tugging Eos’s closer as magic began to build in the room. Shouts and spells echoed into the room just a moment too late, the heat of the spell fire not even felt as they twisted into the tugging sensation of apparition and were gone without even the faintest sound of a pop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If y'all thought I would pass up an opportunity to use Jamie mother Campbell fcking Bower as my basis for Grindelwald's appearance then you can all kindly leave. I love Johnny Depp but I cried at the nasty hair and mustache they put on him in Fantastic Beasts. So we're using Jamie, because boy has the voice and face of an angel. I legit had a five minute fangirling session when I saw him in the Harry Potter series and then I died when he showed up again in Fantastic Beasts being sensual af. NO ONE TALK TO ME.
> 
> Also, Gellert Grindelwald is by far the hardest character I have ever had to write and that's _saying_ something bc all they did was talk. Severus Snape is no walk in the park to write either but I'd rather write him. He's not nearly as emotionally complex or stunted as Grindelwald. Hopefully he'll get easier to write bc he seems like he's going to be sticking around for a while.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Aarre - children  
> Muhnne - muggles  
> Mii vul kro - my dark mage  
> Aara ahnk'to - darling one
> 
> Ich werde Ihren Gefangenen jetzt freilassen - I'm going to release your prisoner now.  
> Ich sagte halt! - I said halt!  
> Bitte senken Sie Ihren Zauberstab und ich verspreche Ihnen zu leben - Please lower your wand and I promise you will live
> 
> Haha, breaking out the high school German that I haven't used for 4+ years. I have no idea if these are perfect grammatically. They look okay to me, but again, 4+ years is a long time and if you don't use it, you lose it. If I'm wrong then please feel free to correct me!


	4. Horvut Filok Ofaal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eos just can't help himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a bit of a shorter chapter this time. I have finals coming up soon, and as a senior in college, that means a slow death. Anyways, have this chapter that introduces more background and new characters. They were 100% not meant to exist but they forced their way into the story so here they are.
> 
> Also, I realized earlier that Eos is probably not a straightforward name to pronounce, so here’s the pronunciation! The ‘e’ in Eos is pronounced like the ‘a’ in ‘anger’, the ‘o’ is pronounced like the ‘o’ in ‘ocean’, and the ‘s’ is pronounced like the ‘s’ in ‘snake’. So it sounds like ‘ay-oh-s’. I technically took the name from the Greek goddess of dawn but he name is pronounced ‘ee-aw-s’ and that sounds dumb to me and I like it enough for the symbolism that I’m gonna keep it but with my pronunciation on the grounds of creative license. Idk if the pronunciation is why you guys refer to him as Harry in the comments or if it’s because you hate his name but there it is. And I guess I’m sorry if you hate the name :/ _‘Harry’_ isn’t available, for obvious reasons, but I also feel like _‘Hadrian’_ or _‘Harrison’_ don’t work for him with where he is in his life. Honestly, I actually share Eos's opinion of him not _needing_ a name but for the sake of narrative purposes he does kinda need one, so it’s Eos.
> 
>  _ **TLDR;**_ short chapter with lots of background and new characters bc finals suck. Eos is pronounced "ay-oh-s".
> 
> Anyway, onto the story! This is unbeta'd as usual and I also only did a cursory check on grammar and spelling so let me know if you find any mistakes!

**~ Horvut Filok Ofaal ~**  
_Prison Break Adoptions_

* * *

Much to Lupa’s consternation and constant fear that he was going to disappear again, Eos had decided one prison break wasn’t enough for him. It wasn’t necessarily something he needed to do, he didn’t have anyone else he was interested in releasing from life imprisonment, but it was amusing to see the guards’ flummoxed expressions when they realized one man was all it had taken to raze their prisons to the ground. Well, one god, but who was arguing specifics?

Besides, he’d found it was a good way to simultaneously draw the wizarding world’s attention and to keep them misinformed to the direction he was heading; said direction being Britannia. Perhaps it was a bit sentimental, but Eos found himself not caring. Britannia had been all he’d known for most of his early life, who could fault him for wanting to return to his mother country to poke around in it; see what was different, what was the same? Maybe meet another Dark Lord. Maybe kill a few ministry employees. Nothing major.

He had even found a nice area to inhabit already: a lovely little clearing in the eastern portion of the Kielder forest, right next to a small lake that no one would really miss when the concealment and anti-trespassing wards went up. Really, it wasn't like the muhnne would _need_ the five kilometers of forest he was claiming. There wouldn’t be enough of them left to even fill up _two_ kilometers when he was finished leveling their polluted cities.

With that thought in mind, he’d sent his aarre to Britannia to build a small settlement in the chosen area, leaving them the creative freedom to design and add as many buildings as they wanted after they’d constructed the main manor for his residence. He was certain there would be more houses than necessary, as he knew many would hesitate to leave the familiarity of their tents, but he wasn’t going to leave them without the option of a solid roof over their heads either. The easy versatility of the tents was no longer needed: they had no enemies that knew of them to warrant packing up and changing locations and his future allies would likely look down upon them less with a more stable space of living. Not the Eos cared, he’d sleep where and how he pleased, but it would be less of a headache in the future if he didn’t have to deal with the petty sneers of disdain more than he wanted to.

While his aarre prepared their new homes and packed for the move, Eos created his distraction, moving from Austria to Italy to Romania and then lastly Ukraine. They were countries that had been hit harder by Grindelwald during his war, according to the man himself. Easily reached he'd explained and so he conducted many raids there, thus resulting in their more... _progressive_ views when it came to the muhnne. Which meant their prisoners were mostly wixen who got caught practicing the olde ways, possessing dark artifacts, and hunting muhnne. It was just too much of a temptation for Eos to leave alone.

He hit each prison within a week, fast enough that his next target couldn’t be predicted and slow enough that his aarre had time to finish up with their tasks. Italy was a bit of a bore. It had faded since the Roman Empire, becoming a tourist site of “refined” classical tastes. Eos had clicked his tongue in disappointment at the lax security and even laxer disposition the guards had displayed when he’d emptied the prison. Romulus and Remus would have been disgraced if they could have seen what their once great capital had turned into.

The thought brought a pang of sorrow to his chest.

He remembered with clarity the two toddlers Lupa had brought to him twelve hundred years ago, asking for his permission to raise them. They were muhnne, but they were children, and he had seen how Lupa had already become attached as she’d begged for his blessing, letting them suckle uselessly at her dry breasts. It had been the first request she’d made simply for herself, one that she had pleaded for profusely, so he’d let her keep them.

The boys had grown fast, and while they had been children with no magic and no creature blood, they had managed to wrap everyone around their little fingers, including him, with their willingness to learn and their respectful mannerisms. Lupa had trained them to be fierce warriors, and despite their circumstances of blood, they had been his best fighters.

At first, Lupa had refused to pass her lycanthropy to them until they were old enough to make the decision for themselves. She would have let them continue to live without the wolf blood, but when they reached the age of majority, Eos had put his foot down. They were muhnne, they weren’t children of Lahii. He’d made them choose: they could accept the bite and become werewolves on the full moon and remain with their mother, or they could leave and he would promise them and their families immunity.

They’d chosen to leave.

It had broken Lupa’s heart to separate from them, and for a while she’d left her place at Eos’s side to stay and live with her children. Only when they had grown older and found wives and founded their empire, had she returned, but she’d continued to visit them until the days of their deaths. Now, their story was nothing more than a legend to muhnne and wixen alike.

Romania had been highly difficult to infiltrate, but that was only because of the vast number of necromancers and vampires that had been prosecuted and left to rot for eternity in their cells of sunlight and silver. The guards were more alert, more practiced, and harder to subdue. In the end, he’d had to kill a few that just wouldn’t stay down to safely release the prisoners. Once released, many of the vampires had bowed before him, expressing their gratitude in their native tongues as they knelt on the hard ground. He had laid his hand upon their heads affectionately, transferring small amounts of magic to the weary forms of his kiirre and healing vicious burns they had endured from the sun’s unforgiving touch before he left them to flee back to their covens. The necromancers had, to a point, given him the same regard as the vampires, offering him deep nods and murmured words of thanks before they’d faded into the shadows. It’d been a pleasing sight, one that spoke of a debt owed. Something he would remember when he called upon future allies.

Ukraine’s prison had been easier to break into than Romania’s, which had been surprising to him considering that, instead of wixen, he had found a multitude of different creatures in the cells: harpies, and vampires, and werewolves, and goblins. Spriggans, and nymphs, and dryads, and fae folk. Some who knew who he was and some who didn’t, all looking worse for wear. There were only a handful of humans in the prison and the last two he’d released were so young, Eos had blinked to make sure he hadn’t been hallucinating when he’d opened the heavy iron door.

“I didn’t realize children were given prison sentences in this day and age,” he’d said conversationally, gliding into the cell to release the two - a boy and a girl that were nearly identical if not for the different lengths of their deep black, almost purple hair, their sanguine brown eyes, and their olive toned skin smudged with dirt and bruises - from the manacles around their ankles.

“We’re not children!” The girl had bristled, though her voice crack had portrayed otherwise. “We’re sixteen this winter!”

The boy had merely sighed, rolling his eyes before rolling his ankle when the iron cuff fell from his foot, the joint popping with a satisfying crack.

“Of course, forgive me,” Eos had said, smiling in amusement. “And what, if I may ask, did you two _‘not children’_ do to get thrown into the Ukaranian Magical Prison?”

“What’s it to you?” The girl had asked, but the boy spoke over her, ignoring her indignant huff.

“There were poachers hunting a pride of nundu,” he’d answered, his voice quiet and tight in restrained anger. “They’re bred here and kept malnourished to use for hunting games, and so are a lot of other creatures. My sister and I stumbled across the hunting party when we were gathering potion ingredients.”

Eos had raised his eyebrows in surprise. “And you were thrown in prison for interrupting their hunt?”

“No, _yolop_ , we were thrown in prison for killing the poachers,” the girl had retorted, yelping when her brother smacked the back of her head. “What the hell was that for, Ryver!?”

“Don’t call someone who’s breaking you out of prison names. Not only is it ungrateful but it’s also a great way to get yourself killed,” the boy, Ryver, had scolded. “Do you think just anyone can break into a wizarding prison by themselves on a whim? Use your brain, Rayne, I know you have one even if it’s the size of a sparrow’s. Now apologize, before he decides to leave us in here.”

Rayne had grumbled under her breath before offering him a rather insincere apology.

Ryver looked like he was going to smack his sister again, but Eos had simply chuckled. “Your apology is accepted, though unnecessary. I would have let you go, regardless. Though your brother is right, a loose tongue is oftentimes cut off when words are said in haste. Now off with you. I still have many more cells to empty.”

He had walked on to the next locked room, expecting the two to run off like the rest of the wizards he’d freed, but to his surprise, the sound of two pairs of feet followed after him. He’d stopped, turning just enough to see that both had frozen behind him like guilty toddlers who had been sneaking sweets when their parents hadn’t been looking. He’d decided to allow it, turning back to carry on down the hall, a smile tugging on his lips when he'd heard the sound of two pairs of feet pattering after him.

Releasing the rest of the prisoners had taken longer with the two weary fifteen year olds following him, but he’d found himself not minding. They were intriguing to him: both young enough to still be in school but not, both in perfect sync as they trailed after him even though neither uttered a single word to the other, both magically powerful and vicious enough that they were thrown into prison despite being under the age of majority. And he seemed to intrigue them as well, as he’d often caught them staring at him when he would twist his wrist or twirl his fingers in a wordless spell to unlock doors or dispatch guards. They’d been especially interested when he’d lain his palm flat against the ankle of a faerie, healing the burn caused by the iron shackle and gifting the paper thin being a handful of his magic.

When the faerie had thanked him and left, the two siblings had shared a look before Ryver had asked him, “How can you do magic without a wand?”

Eos had smirked smugly, his emerald eyes twinkling. “How do you think wixen cast magic thousands of years ago? Wands have only been in use since the common era. Wixen have been alive since the very first nomadic tribes walked the earth.”

The two siblings traded a glance before Ryver had asked in a soft yet sure tone, “How long have _you_ been alive?” 

Eos had hummed, an almost rueful smile gracing his lips as he’d gazed at the twins that had been following him around like lost puppies. Just for a moment, he’d seen another set of twins in their place: lanky, with relaxed postures and matching grins. Then Rayne had shifted, and the illusion changed to a boy and a girl: one prim and proper, with bushy hair and an armful of books, the other lax and messy, a smudge of ink on his brow and his back hunched over. He had stared at them in silence until the sounds of shouting and rapid footsteps had echoed through the stone hall, drawing Eos back to himself as the visions had cleared.

“Let’s just say that I have been alive for far longer than I would have ever asked for,” he had murmured, stepping quickly to the side to avoid a deep orange spell that whistled past his shoulder. “Now, if you’re going to continue tailing me, I suggest sticking close. Reinforcements seem to have arrived.”

“We know how to defend ourselves,” Rayne had muttered, but he’d ignored her indignant grumbling to throw a shield up against a barrage of multicoloured spells, moving his fingers in shorts jerky flicks to throw his own spells back at the advancing aurors. One by one, the blue clad witches and wizards had fallen until the only shouts that could be heard were further down the hall and Eos and his new charges were no longer in immediate danger.

“Come, not children, we still have to finish up this wing and then the western corridor before we can leave.”

“Who says we’re leaving with you?” Rayne had asked, though she'd followed obediently after him as he'd moved swiftly to the next cell. Eos had merely shaken his head, laughing under his breath as they’d continued down the hall.

By the time they’d managed to clear out the prison, they had been accosted thrice more by reinforcement teams. Eos had found it amusing, using their interruptions as practice for his thousand year old rusty casting. However, Ryver, and Rayne despite her loud bravado that they could take care of themselves, had flinched whenever they’d heard the aurors closing in on them, almost hiding behind Eos and his fur cloak whenever they caught sight of the royal blue robes. Their reactions had been endearing, though the connotation that came with them had not, and he’d found himself growing more irate with each group of aurors they encountered.

When the last cell had been emptied and the last auror had been struck down, he had turned to them with a warm, not quite smile on his lips. “I have freed you, but it is up to you to decide where you go from here. I can take you to the nearest wizarding village or I can drop you off in an entirely different country altogether. Or, if you wish, I can take you with me to my home, and you can stay with me and my people.”

The two teenagers had blinked, as if taken aback by the offer, before trading glances with each other that only they could decipher.

“Why?” Ryver had asked.

“What do you get out of taking us in?” Rayne had echoed.

Eos had blinked, not necessarily surprised at the blatant suspicion the twins directed at him as he answered truthfully, “I gain two new charges who advocate for the fair treatment of magical creatures and aren’t afraid to spill a little blood to achieve it. I gain two young spies who no one will look twice at or question due to your age. I will also gain your loyalty as you are both parentless and if not parentless, then abandoned. 

“However, I will not take advantage of your loyalty. I will never ask you to do anything you cannot commit to or condone. You will not be treated unfairly nor will I punish you physically. I will care for you, clothe you, feed you. I will teach you the olde ways, when creatures and wixen had no reason to hide and magic was practiced out in the open and I will nurture your talents and interests. I will train you to become forces of magic and, when you are old enough, I will grant you a permanent place in this world if you wish for it. That being said, this is your only opportunity to take my offer. If you choose to go your own way, you will never see me again. I have many enemies, too many to risk compromising myself by allowing you to join me and then letting you change your minds. You must commit or you will put me in a position where I will have to tie up loose ends.”

Rayne had swallowed nervously while Ryver had taken a deep steadying breath before exchanging glances and nodding in unison.

“We’ll do it,” Rayne had declared, her stance steady and sure.

“Take us with you,” Ryver’d breathed, his garnet coloured eyes sparking from deep within.

Eos offered a hand to them each. Two olive tone palms had slid into alabaster, twin gasps echoing in the emptied prison as Eos had let his magic flow through their connected hands, pulling the two teenagers close enough that he could shift to cup opposite sides of their faces. Their rich brown eyes had danced with the exchange of magic, identical expressions of awe making their faces slacken. Eos had let his lips tug up in a soft smile, his own emerald eyes warm and affectionate as he’d run a thumb over their bruised and dirty cheeks.

“Come, mii joraan kiirre. Let us go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter tried so hard to make itself into crack. It kinda succeeded but I toned it down a whole lot compared to what I originally wrote. I even saved an example:
> 
> Eos: “I have freed you, but it is up to you to decide where you go from here. I can take you to the nearest wizarding village or I can drop you off in an entirely different country altogether. Or, if you wish to continue following me like small, befeathered fowls-”  
> Ryver: “Did you just call us ducklings?”  
> Rayne: _*angst intensifies with loud quacking*_
> 
> And yes, I'm being pretentious, spelling rain and river with y's.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Mmuhnne - muggles  
> Aarre - servants  
> Kiirre - children  
> Lahii - the entity of magic  
> Mii joraan kiirre - my young children
> 
> Yolop (йолоп) - dumbass, nitwit, bonehead (big thank you to Alterf for providing legitimate Ukrainian translations!)


	5. Prodah Do Pogaas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Golden Trio and co. are growing immensely more worried over this new shadow darkening their doorstep. Meanwhile, Eos and his followers finally move to their new home while tempers are high.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovelies and Happy Holidays! I was hoping to get this chapter out by Christmas but, in my normal fashion, I ended up getting sick Christmas day and so now here we are, a day later. UwU
> 
> I really want to thank you all for all the comments and kudos and OC love. I never really imagined this would be received as well as it has been bc this is pretty lax writing and grammar on my end and I'm also choking the story with OCs and world building which isn't perceived very happily in the fanfic community. The fact that you all enjoy the world building and enjoy the OCs is still kind of mind boggling to me because I'm also one of those fanfic readers that is really skeptical of stories with heavy amounts of OCs so I understand why it happens.
> 
> As a present of my thanks and love, I got y'all a long chapter that is more world building, OCs, and also maybe a bit of a cliffhanger? (idrk, I've never really been one for writing cliffhangers but this one kind of came together all on its own?)
> 
> As always, not beta'd (tho a little bird has told me that there is a possibility that will soon be rectified) so let me know if you see any mistakes! Also kudos to blackesparrow, Alterf, Taureine and everyone else for either correcting mistakes or helping me with translations!
> 
> Also also, I've made a writing tumblr blog. I haven't been on tumblr in ages, but I thought I'd make one just to keep track of ideas, make aesthetic posts, and also maybe release sneak peaks? Idk how this works I don't follow any author tumblrs so we'll see how this goes! You can follow me here at [payper-words](https://payper-words.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the chapter and I hope y'all are staying safe!

**~ Prodah Do Pogaas ~**  
_Predictions of Many_

* * *

Harry didn’t think about it often, mostly because he liked to give them the benefit of the doubt, but between his two best friends, his best mate’s little sister, and the twins, he sometimes felt like he was the only one in the group who was mature. Case in point, their current situation:

They had gathered together with a new pair of extendable ears that worked a lot like cellphones, with one hidden in a kitchen cupboard and the other with one of the twins at all times. Unfortunately, they could only be so far apart before they lost connection, so they had to be near enough to each other to hear any conversations being had. Thus, much like the first time they had tried to listen in on an Order meeting, the gaggle of teenagers had to find a location to gather near the kitchen.

Except this time they were all shoved together in what might have once been a coat closet, instead of hanging over the staircase bannister. It was a much better hiding place than at the top of the stairwell where, on a second attempt, Mrs. Weasley had found them after excusing herself from a rather heated - and pointless, as much as it pained Harry to admit it - argument between Sirius and Snape, but it was a tight fit and black as the void, and everyone was making their discontent very much known and loudly.

“Stop pushing!” Hermione hissed.

“ _Ow!_ ” Ginny yelped, “Ron, that’s my hand you’re stepping on!”

“Ack! Don’t kick me you she-devil!” Ron cried.

Ginny ignored him, asking, “Hermione, your hair is in my face, can you tie it back?”

“Shut up you lot, we didn’t make these with adjustable volume!” Fred - or George - yelled.

“Hey, wait, that’s a good idea,” George - or Fred - murmured.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“But how would we-”

“Maybe like a reverse sonorous?”

“That could work! Or we could-”

Harry sighed, deciding to intervene before they got swept up into their own little world of experiments and pranking gadgets, “Gred, Forge, spy on meeting now, brainstorm on merchandise later.”

“Oh, right!” Gred chirped.

“Such a reliable chap you've turned out to be, Harry,” Forge said.

“It has to be You-Know-Who!” The extendable ear shouted, silencing the gaggle of teenagers, the exclamation holding the tenor and volume of an extremely pissed off Sirius Black. “He’s freed Grindelwald to get the support of a fellow Dark Lord and now he’s freeing more people from prisons to gain more followers. Just like with Azkaban!”

“Perhaps it escaped your notice since the dementors clearly sucked out what little intelligence you had, Black,” the ear murmured, taking on the unmistakable, bored yet vicious drawl of their potions professor. “But the Dark Lord only rescued sworn Death Eaters when he raided Azkaban, leaving the rest to fend for themselves against both the aurors and the dementors. Why would he raid prisons, in other countries, to release a rival Lord and wizards and witches he has no use of?”

“He’s fear mongering!” Sirius yelled, a deep thud vibrating through the ear that sounded like a fist striking a wooden surface. “Sending a warning to the wizarding world by showing them that he can take down prisons anywhere, not just Britain!”

“To what purpose and end?” Snape hissed, beginning to lose his cool. “The Dark Lord has no reason to waste time and resources terrorizing countries on the continent, for prisoners he has no use for. He has no use for fear from the continent when he has no foothold in those countries. It would spark a rebellion before he even tries to lay solid foundations for an outward expansion!”

“That doesn’t rule out the possibility that it’s Voldemort, Severus,” The extendable ear sighed, switching over the gentle and tired voice of the headmaster. “Are you certain he hasn’t called for any raids since June?”

“If he has, then he has done so without informing me. Which would be plausible, if he has lost faith in me or has any suspicions, but seeing as I was the one to nurse him back to health after helping him restore his soul, I am disinclined to believe such suspicions exist.”

A tense silence followed the declaration. The idea that Voldemort’s soul was now whole, and the fact that it had been split - multiple times - was not exactly new. It was still shocking, even after hearing about it for the third time; the first had been accidental, Harry barely catching the end of a conversation between Dumbledore and Snape when the potions master had stumbled in after two weeks of being MIA. The second was a face to face and in-person meeting with most of the Order in attendance, plus Dumbledore sitting in weary silence while the kitchen had nearly collapsed under the volume of all the shouted disbelief and denial. It had been a terrible revelation that Voldemort had mutilated himself beyond all hope just to ensure his soul would never depart from the mortal plane, an immortal enemy that they’d had no hope against. Now though, they had a chance. Even if it seemed to be growing slimmer and slimmer each day.

“We’ve had reports come in of a man,” the extendable ear murmured, shifting into the deep, accented baritone of Kingsley Shacklebolt. Harry only vaguely remembered the rich voice from his Wizengamot hearing, when the auror had told Mr. Weasley that the time for his trial had changed. “He doesn’t match the description of You-Know-Who, not even after Severus helped return him to a more youthful and human appearance. He’s short, somewhere around 5’4” to 5’6”, with pale skin, long black hair, and bright emerald eyes. His preferred clothing seems to consist of materials that are favored by beings: furs and leather, gold, wood, bone. Besides sharing pale skin, darkly coloured hair, and a flair for the dramatics, this new enemy and our resident Dark Lord have almost nothing in common.”

“Dramatics?” Hermione whispered.

“A flair for the dramatics?” The stern, sharp voice of Professor McGonagall echoed through the ear.

“He threw a guard’s heart down the stairwell in Nurmengard. The guard’s cause of death was determined to be the removal of his heart via a rupture in his lung and then up through his trachea. In Rome, he suspended all the guards upside down and then painted a pentacle on their chests in their own blood after he sealed their mouths shut with a black wizarding chess knight inside. The medical team on hand were able to get the down but they couldn’t get the spells on their mouths to release and by then most of the chess pieces had already knocked their way out through their teeth.

“In Romania he killed four guards by tying them to stakes and setting them alight with Fiendfyre. They were charred beyond recognition by the time the flames were put out and the bodies were only identified through magical signature, at least what was left of it that the fire didn’t consume. And lastly, in Ukraine, he left almost the entire guard in the cells, bound at each wrist and ankle and at the neck in rough iron cuffs that drew blood and chaffed skin. The rest he trussed up on spits and mounted on walls like roasts and hunting trophies. Over all, he has a low kill count, but like I said, he’s dramatic.”

“Has the Ministry made any decisions regarding this new enemy, Kingsley?” A softer, feminine voice that Harry didn’t recognize asked.

“The Minister doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. He still refuses to believe that You-Know-Who is at large, so declaring yet another Dark Lord on the rise is the last thing he wants to do. As far as he’s concerned, this new wizard is the continent’s problem. Besides, his trajectory seems to be taking him away from Britain and more towards Russia, so the Minister doesn’t view him as a threat.”

“Cornelius’s greatest weakness has always been his shortsightedness,” Dumbledore sighed, earning a mumbled agreement from the Order members present.

From then on the conversation was more subdued and harder to make out, so before they got caught - again - the teens decided to vacate the coat closet and return to the safety of the second floor sitting room.

“Great, so now we have an international You-Know-Who 2.0,” Fred muttered, flopping down onto an old and dusty settee.

“You-Know-Who 2.0, with a _slightly_ higher moral compass,” George agreed, sitting down next to his twin, the rest of them settling into the moth-eaten chairs and loveseat.

“He’s making statements...” Hermione murmured, her brow furrowing while she sorted through everything they had heard.

“Statements?” Harry prompted when Hermione didn’t elaborate.

“Yes,” Hermione jumped up, beginning to pace as she waved her hands frantically. “Nurmengard is obvious and also a link to his last victims. He wanted people to know that the attack in Norway and the attack in Austria were done by the same person. But he upped his game in Rome. The guards were all left in particular poses and set-ups. In Rome, I believe he was making a jab at their lax security measures. He hung them upside down, painted a pentacle on their chests, and hid a chess knight in their mouths. At first it just seemed he was making jokes of them by hanging them upside while he released the prisoners but why a knight piece? Why not pawns or rooks? And then a pentacle painted in blood. Blood magic is illegal, as is most ritual magic, but it doesn’t sound like they were used for a ritual, just drawn.”

“Hermione, just get to the point,” Ron demanded.

“Honestly, Ron, how are you not seeing this?” Hermione huffed, setting her hands on her hips. “You’ve all taken at least one year of divination. I wasn’t even there for the unit on tarot cards and I know this!”

Ron scoffed. “You think the wizard is portraying them as tarot cards?”

“The Knight of Pentacles, reversed!” Ginny exclaimed, shrugging when the boys all gave her a bewildered look. “Luna had a spare deck. We would read each other’s fortunes before dinner.”

“That’s why you think it’s a jab at their security,” George said, catching on to the conversation.

“I didn’t see it at first, but that’s not a bad interpretation, Hermione,” Fred commended.

“Oi,” Ron nudged Harry with his foot, gesturing to the room. “Are we the only ones missing something here?”

Harry gave him a clueless shrug, glancing over to Hermione who was shaking her head in fond exasperation.

“I’ll never understand how you got an Exceeds Expectations in that class, Ronald. The Knight of Pentacles, reversed signifies - if one is to believe in silly cards meant to portray your past, present, and future - self-discipline, boredom, being ‘stuck’, or perfectionism. Since I don’t believe the guards in Italy were hung upside down because they were perfect in doing their jobs and I doubt they were ‘stuck’ in more than a literal sense, it’s likely safe to assume that they’re being reprimanded for their lack of self-discipline and inability to properly guard the prison as well as likely doing things they ought not to be doing while on the job such as playing games or slacking off. Then again, it could also be a way of saying that they bored this wizard in a way he found lacking and so he made a game of his own.”

“Why are all the dark wizards so bloody mental?” Ron groaned, covering his face with his hands. “Why can’t they just want to start a jarvey revolt or something?”

“Ron, jarveys may be light creatures, but they’re still dangerous,” Hermione scolded. “A jarvey revolt could be just as deadly as a centaur or a goblin revolt if there were enough of them, not to mention that it would be entirely deplorable to listen to. Imagine hundreds of jarveys cursing you all at once.”

“What about the other prisons?” Ginny asked, effectively cutting off Hermione’s tirade before it could build. “What kind of messages are those?”

Hermione hummed, staring her pacing again. “Romania is simple, vampires have been depicted there in all genres of literature and even today the country is still home to many old covens. Vampires aren’t as affected by sunlight as most muggle literature likes to depict, but depending on their age and if they are exposed for a long time, they do begin to burn. And it’s a very slow and agonizing burn from some of the journals I’ve read of early vampire hunters trying to force out the location of covens from captured vampires. They can burn for days if they’re kept in only partial sunlight. It was rather gruesome and barbaric.”

“So you think he was sending a message to the vampires by torching a few? ‘Cross me and I’ll kill you?’” Ron guessed.

“No... that doesn't sound right,” Hermione muttered.

“Kingsley said he used Fiendfyre,” Harry said, noticing how all the teens shuddered in fear. “But he said the bodies were charred to the bone. Wouldn’t the bodies have turned to ash if they were vampires?”

“So not a warning to the vampires, but their hunters?” Fred surmised.

“‘Here’s what you’ve been doing and this is how it feels’,” George interpreted.

“So he’s a dark creature activist?” Ron grumbled, rubbing at his temples. “Guess those jarvey revolts _won’t_ be happening this year.”

“I don’t think activist is the right term,” Harry sighed, leaning back in his chair. “So what about Ukraine then? He bound them in iron on each limb and at the neck, but for what reason?”

George spoke up before Hermione could open her mouth. “Ah, that is also somewhat self explanatory.”  
“George and I have done some research because some of our product testers are part creature or beings,” Fred continued, leaning forward on his elbows. “We have found that iron is to the fae,”

“What the sun is to vampires.” George cut in.

“Which is why,”

“When you find vendors selling freshly caught pixies and fairies,” 

“They’re housed in iron cages,” Fred finished.

“Monstrous,” Hermione bit out, glaring at the twins who held their hands up in surrender.

“Don't hex the owl, Granger,” Fred said, a grimace twisting his own lips.

“We don’t exactly fancy the practice ourselves,” George informed them. “Like we said, a lot of our testers are beings or half creatures that have been marginalized by society.”

Hermione took a deep breath, closing her eyes, giving them a nod before launching back into their analysis. “So, tying up guards with iron is most likely a dig about how they treated their prisoners with fae blood. What about the spits and that hunting trophy displays?”

Harry cleared his throat, calling the attention of the group. “I actually may have an explanation for that. Remember when Hagrid had us do that research assignment on magical creatures outside of Britain last year? Well, I did mine on poaching. Apparently it’s really popular to recreationally hunt X Four and X Five Class creatures and beings basically everywhere.

“There are other places that have banned or extremely regulated it like in Japan and Russia, but on a whole, most countries don’t have regulations for it or they actively encourage it. A lot of time what happens is the creature they hunt is bred in captivity and kept weak and feeble so it can’t really hurt or outrun the hunters. Ukraine isn’t all that well known for recreational hunting, they actually have a lot of lower Classed creatures like bowtruckles and actually supply a lot of wand woods to most of Europe’s wand makers, but I bet it’s kept quiet by the hunters and government both.”

“Well if he wasn’t a creature activist before, this kind of makes the point moot,” Ginny sighed.

“This isn't activism. This is- is- vigilantism!” Hermione muttered, gesturing angrily. “How can you possibly think that he’s doing good? He’s killed people, hurt them. What about the magiarchaeologists he murdered? What kind of creature was he protecting when he killed all of them!?”

“Hermione!”

Hermione turned, ready to defend herself but came up short at the hard look Harry gave her before she glanced over at Ginny who was trying, not very successfully, to hide her hurt and affronted expression.

“Oh... I’m sorry, Ginny, I didn’t mean- I’m just so frustrated because this is another wizard to deal with on top of- of V-Voldemort and I’m getting ahead of myself...”

“S’alright,” Ginny sniffed, giving Hermione a tight smile. “I imagine this just adds more stress to your OWL year.”

“Ugh, don’t get me started,” Hermione bemoaned, sitting back down on the loveseat next to the youngest Weasley. “I didn’t mean to... to bite your head off, so to speak. I know you didn’t mean it as a compliment to this wizard, and I know you know he’s bad, and you’ve been a great help and-.”

“Hermione, really, I understand,” Ginny’s smile softened slightly before she nudged the other girl with her shoulder. “I just hope Kingsley is right and we have a peaceful year with no new creature vigilante making his debut at Azkaban.”

“Merlin, don’t say that,” Ron groaned. “You’ll jinx us all. Next thing you know, the rest of Greyback’s pack will be freed from their cells.”

“Kingsley said he was going to Russia,” Hermione reminded them. “Maybe we’ll get lucky this year and things won’t dissolve into absolute chaos this time.”

They all traded a look before bursting into slightly hysterical laughter because really, when had things ever not dissolved into absolute chaos for them?

ϟ ϟ ϟ

Eos groaned as the timed silencing charm he’d put around his pallet faded away, allowing the unfamiliar sounds of people loudly conversing and shouting to filter in. His eyes slit open momentarily before closing again, shielding his sensitive pupils from the bright light that glowed against the buttery leather of the tent’s walls. He turned over, trying to block out the noise and light for just a few more minutes, eventually giving up and heaving a deep sigh as he forced his body up and out of the warmth of his furs and blankets.

The noise was expected. Eos had finally given the order to finish packing up the camp the day before, as the last of the buildings at their new settlement had been nearly completed. It was expected and it was why he’d put a silencing charm up but it still grated against his ears and made his sleep deprived head pound as he slumped on the oversized pillow in front of his polished bronze mirror, grimacing at the doxy nest that his hair had become within the small period of sleep he had obtained. 

He had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, pouring over reports from his spies that he had missed on his week long journey of jailbreaking and then neglected for the next two days, showing his two newest charges around the camp and introducing them to his aarre before he’d retired to his tent and slept for thirty nine hours straight, his body punishing him for pushing his magic past its capacity. And now, yet again, he was being punished for pushing his body past its capacity with a throbbing head and burning eyes.

Rubbing tiredly at his face, he picked up a small, hollow bell that sat just before his mirror, ringing it silently as he took in the wane parlor of his skin and the dark circles under his eyes. The tent flap opened a few moments later, Ymir’s sandy brown head ducking under it. Eos flinched as the open tent flap brought in more of the cacophony before it muted softly with a flick of Ymir’s hand. Eos gave him a grateful smile, waving away his attendant’s obvious concern as Ymir knelt and immediately picking up the bone comb to gently tug it through his hair.

“Pruzah vu, Mo’ah,” Ymir murmured, his deft fingers easily unknotting the ebony strands from each other with each tenderly insistent pass of the comb. “What would you like today?”

Eos sighed, allowing himself to enjoy the slight tug the comb made on his scalp before answering, “Something simple. I find myself heavy with fatigue.”

“Perhaps a half knot or a low twist?”

Eos hummed, neither agreeing or disagreeing with Ymir’s suggestions as he let his eyes flutter close. Ymir’s pleasant voice lilted over him before it grew a concerned edge, drawing Eos from his sluggish doze.

“What was that, Ymir?”

“I asked if you would like a braid? Maybe something off to the side?”

Eos blinked, his tired eyes catching Ymir’s own worried seafoam orbs through his reflection. “Yes, that sounds nice. I think I’ll dress down today as well. A soft cotton tunic and pants would be nice.”

“Would you like for me to pull out any of your jewelry? The antler necklace or the headdress, perhaps?” Ymir offered, taking the silent que to not address Eos’s state of fatigue, artfully twisting sections of Eos’s long hair into a flowing side braid.

“No, forgo any jewelry today,” Eos murmured, standing when Ymir finished tying off the last of the braid, pulling it over his shoulder. “I’ll likely fall over in exhaustion if I have anything heavy unbalancing me.”

Ymir gave a huff of laughter while Eos stepped out of his sheer over robe, letting it fall from his body. It stopped just before it hit the ground, hovering for a moment before it floated up, straightening out as it moved back to his pallet and draped itself over the furs like it was going back to sleep. Lazy lethifold. Eos envied it immensely.

While he had been undressing, Ymir had pulled out a pair of billowing, ebony cotton trousers and an ashen blue tunic that ended just above his ankles and was split down the middle starting just above his waist. It was intricately patterned in golden thread, the hemming lined in an elegant, looping, floral design that was layered with a depiction of a forest around the skirt, the trunks of trees interrupted by deer and wolves chasing each other in nature’s deadliest dance.

Ymir helped him into the outfit easily, tucking the cuffs of his pants to his shins with a strip of cloth before slipping the skirt of the tunic over his head. The waist of the tunic was secured with a simple leather belt, looped through the hoop on one end and then tied securely around itself. Ymir snuck a modest wolf fang necklace around his throat before he directed Eos back over to his mirror, both of them kneeling in front of the other as Ymir dipped his fingers into a shimmering iridescent paste. He gently smeared the pigment in short strokes under Eos’s eyes, the paint shimmering faintly before it settled into the tone of his skin, hiding his dark circles underneath.

After checking his mirror one last time, pleased that the end result hid most of his fatigue, Eos began to rise but before he could stand a hand settled on his shoulder and a gentle weight settled on the top of his brow accompanied by the faint warmth of magic. With an inquisitive look at his attendant, Eos turned back to his mirror, admiring the simple copper circlet that had been placed atop his head. It was an under spoken piece: loose wires of copper that were strung together in gracefully organic curves and bound with smaller wires to make small solid shapes. It was light on his head and stuck fast in place when he tugged on it, shooting a fond look of exasperation at his attendant. 

Ymir gave him an innocent smile, saying only, “It is not heavy and will send you off balance should you succumb to your exhaustion, Mo’ah.”

“Cheeky,” Eos huffed, but let Ymir have his way as he rose, crooking his finger at his robe. It reluctantly floated after him as he made for the entrance of the tent, its form wrapping around him heavily like a warmed blanket as its form solidified into a sturdier material and the collar began to sprout a soft fur. “I do not always need a crown to proclaim my station.”

“No,” Ymir agreed, following closely behind Eos as he exited into the hubbub of his aarre breaking camp. “But you have been bereft of fine clothes and jewels for a good while. It is difficult to see you in such a weakened state. I simply wish you to be at your most, once again.”

Eos halted at that, turning to place a hand on Ymir’s cheek when the boy came to a nervous stop beside him. “Take heart, mii diivi. I may be fragile now, but I am stubborn. Lah runs in my veins. Lahii gives me strength. I will recover.”

Ymir swallowed, a faint glint of wetness teasing at the corners of his eyes as he nodded meekly. Eos brushed his golden brown locks from his forehead, placing a gentle kiss there as a reassurance. 

“Go,” he said, brushing aside his tears with one last caress. “Help your brothers and sisters pack while the day is still young.”

“Yes, mii Raii.”

Eos watched as Ymir bounded away into the busy heart of the camp, taking a fortifying breath when his bronze hair disappeared from sight.

“Do you let your followers take such liberties with you often, Eos?”

Eos hummed but didn’t turn away from watching his aarre dismantling the camp when he replied, “No more often than I let you take liberties in addressing me with my name instead of my title, mii vul kro.”

Grindelwald huffed a laugh, stepping up next to him so that Eos could see his flaxen waves catch the sun in a shining halo of light from the corner of his eyes.

“My liberties are owed to me as compensation for my status. He, however, questioned your power, claimed you to be weak.”

“Would you like to test just how weak I am, Gellert?” Eos hummed sweetly, an amused smile tugging at his lips at the softly barbed teasing. “We have yet to begin strengthening your magic. Perhaps we should start now.”

Gellert snorted. “So you can tear out my heart or hang me upside down or set me alight? I think not.”

“Kriilot,” Eos chuckled, finally turning to look at his newest acolyte, explaining, “He was not questioning my power, he was merely observing my state of fatigue. I am tired, and my faithful are not used to seeing me be so. Before I was captured, I needed barely any sleep. My magic was vast enough to sustain me on an hour or less. Ymir is simply concerned that it is taking longer to regain my full strength.”

“It’s taking longer?” Gellert asked, his sharp, restored mind taking note of the way Eos had phrased his words.

“Great feats of magic drain me, just as any other lahsos, as any other wixen,” Eos explained, turning to guide them away from the noise of the camp. “Creating a new creature or growing an entire forest would have been something that would have forced me to sleep for only a full night. Now, such an act of magic would likely put me in a coma for at least a week.”

“Yet you can leave dozens of guards hanging from the ceiling and sustain the spell hours after it was cast.”

Eos smirked. “Again, raise your magic against mine and see how weak I am. I am not power _less_ , Gellert, simply less power _ful_.”

Grindelwald came to a stop, earth and ocean eyes locked onto Eos’s own forest green. “And why is that, Eos?”

Eos tilted his head, appraising his elegant and youthful face. “I have theories,” he confided at last, smirking when the blonde’s face twisted into irritated disappointment when he didn’t explain further. “A thousand years is a long time, even for an immortal like myself who has seen dynasties and empires come and go. Perhaps something has changed that has made the connection to my magic unstable. Perhaps I simply haven’t made enough tributes to Lahii to convince her I am still worthy of my gift. Either way, it will eventually balance itself out and I will return to my more usual state of being.”

“You sound confident,” Gellert remarked. “What if your precious personification of magic decides you _aren’t_ worthy for your return to power?”

Eos paused, his expression calm and unconcerned as his gaze seemed to unfocused when he said, “Then I suppose I am not worthy, and she will strike me down the moment she deems me so.”

Grindelwald grimaced at the cold surety in which Eos accepted the possibility of such a fate, bringing an amused smile to the immortal’s lips.

“I am not just old, Gellert, I am ancient. Only the forces of nature and Lahii herself proceed me in age. Death is not something I willingly seek out, but neither do I fear its final embrace.”

“Such a bleak outlook to have on your own life,” Gellert murmured, resuming the unhurried pace of their walk. “If I had been granted your gift, I wouldn’t squander it by thinking so morbidly.”

“Ah, but you have not lived as long as I have,” Eos proclaimed, following after his dark wizard. “Much of what you seek to gain with immortality withers away with time: followers die, kingdoms rise and fall, treasures rust and and fineries decay,” Eos caught sight of one of his aarre from across the glade, his dark hair cropped short, dressed in the garb of his elite warriors. His dark blue gaze lingered on Eos, those two dark sapphires shining before they moved to Gellert, flashing dangerously with muted anger before he turned away and vanished back into the throng of people packing. Eos sighed, his lips pressed thin as he continued in a quiet murmur, “Lovers take their last breaths and return to the soil of the earth, rejecting the unnaturalness of an unending life.”

Gellert paused at that, brows drawing down in deliberation as he glared at Eos.

“You’re not as hard to read as you think you are, mii vul kro,” Eos told him, the endearment doing nothing to soften Gellert’s heavy glower. “I have had many lovers devoted to me, many who would and have died for me, but very few who _lived_ for me.”

Eos turned, meeting Grindelwald’s scowl with his own steady gaze. “He won’t accept it, Gellert. I would have to bring him into immortality and I am already a worse threat to his way of life than either you or Voldemort combined, though that is yet to be known. Even if I was to pledge myself to the good of all lives and end my campaign against the muhnne - the muggles, as you call them - he would still not accept it. He is old and tired and set in his ways, and he has found a place in life that he is secure in. One that is not by your side and one he will not give up.”

“You don’t know him. You don’t know _us_ ,” Gellert fumed, his voice as sharp as the silent blade of an assassin in the dead of night. “You have stories that have been spoken of so many times that the truth has been buried under a mountain of conjecture and exaggerations.”

Eos raised his brow, unimpressed. “You think I take the word of gossips as the truth? I have lived for thousands of years, and I dare say I will live for thousands more, and you believe me incapable of sussing out secrets and discerning the truth?”

Gellert growled deeply, but otherwise didn’t interrupt when Eos went on.

“Tell me, were your plans to subdue the muhnne and rule over them as their betters speculation? Was it a lie that you and Albus created these plans together and formed a blood pact to see it carried out all within the span of two months? Was it conjecture that you attacked his brother and had a hand in the events that led to his sister’s death?” Eos stepped closer, taking no notice of their height difference as he delivered his final blow with a purr. “Was it an exaggeration that he forsook you, desecrating your love by lifting his wand against you and leaving you to rot in your own prison?”

Gellert gave a pained snarl, grabbing Eos by the front of his tunic, pressing his wand harshly into the side of his throat. When he spoke, his words were a rough whisper of building anger, “You may have my magic and soon my body but my heart belongs only to me and I may choose to give it to whomever I wish and you will do _nothing_ to stop me.”

Eos answered his snarl with his own, snaking his hand up to fist it in the back of Gellert’s hair, ignoring the pressure on his throat that they both knew would do little good for the blonde should Eos chose to answer his challenge, dragging the man’s face closer with a savage tug. He leaned forward, allowing himself to get lost in the rage filling the other’s ice and shadow eyes before he pressed their foreheads together, their breath mingling as he whispered, “No, I won’t. But I _will_ pick up the shattered remains of it when you foolishly refuse to listen to me, and I will piece it back together, and soothe your broken heart until it is mended. _That_ is what I will do, because make no mistake Gellert Grindelwald:

Eos yanked at his hair again, his grip tightening with his own anger, one that had been burning and festering for eons and was now rearing its ugly head in righteous fury as he hissed, “I am _right_. I am right and you _know_ it. You know exactly how this pantomime is going to play out and yet still you are going to throw yourself upon the paltry mercies of a man who didn’t even have the courage to kill you and save you the years of heartache and suffering he forced upon you by leaving you to fade away because he’d rather pretend _you don’t exist_ than take responsibility for the monster you became and face the consequences of your broken love. And after he rejects you for a third time I will be left with the shattered remains of you, a man I have taken into my care and now consider mine, and I will feel your pain and know your sorrow and I will burn with an immeasurable rage all the more for it.”

Eos took a deep breath, closing his eyes to recollect himself, gently stroking his fingers to soothe irritated skin as he released his handful of hair. When he opened his eyes, he fully disengaged from the other, stepping back to regard Gellert’s prickling aura with a cold expression of deadly intent. “His lah, his _magic_ , is already forfeit from the lives he has ruined, intentional or not, by selectively seeing the good in people. Make no mistake that when your heart lies lifeless and bloody at your feet, his life will be forfeit too.” 

With that, he left the dark wizard to his thoughts, making his way back into the heart of the now empty and silent camp where Lupa and the twins he’d picked up only a few days ago stood waiting for him. He stopped just short of them, forcing himself to take several deep breaths, his state f exhaustion making it no easier to push away his anger and the deep thirst for violence that came with it before he addressed his lieutenant in a somewhat calm, if not abrupt, manner. 

“Lupa, report.” 

The female werewolf gave a short bow, straightening as she relayed the last few hours of work to him. “As you know, the buildings were finished as of yesterday. We had most everything packed three days in advance but the last of the tents and supplies have been packed and sent off, including your own. I gave instructions for a ten minute break before the unpacking was to start and for the manor to be the first building settled. Ymir has been given instructions on the attendant quarters and is in charge of three others to help arrange your possessions as you would desire. 

“I left Katya in charge of a group of seven that are to unpack supplies into the houses built specifically for the storage of food, drink, equipment and materials. Darnell and Terran, plus a group of three more, are finishing making the village and the surrounding woods and lake unplottable and will be securing anti-trespassing and anti-apparating wards. The rest are to simply unpack their belongings and to help where they are needed.” 

“What of Lukas?” He asked, breathing deeply when she flinched at his inquiry. “I see.” 

“He helped for the most part,” she said, trying to defend her brother yet still unable to deny her creator a full admission. “But earlier he went looking for you and then never returned.” 

“He is being as obstinate as ever,” Eos sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he let some of his exhaustion bleed into his posture. 

Lupa said nothing to dispute him, though she did offer a hesitant suggestion, “Perhaps you should go to him.”

“No,” Eos refused, expression stony as he straightened back out. “If he wants to be soothed then he must be the one to come to me. He’ll just argue everything I say to him otherwise and I have no want to get into another argument today. See to your duties and leave him be for now.”

“Of course, Mo’ah,” Lupa bowed, turning on the spot and disapparating with a sharp pop. 

With Lupa gone to oversee the management of the move, Eos turned to his two young charges, smiling when they came to attention. 

“Mii joraan kiirre,” he greeted, placing a hand on both their cheeks. “I regret that I have been so busy that I have not had time to see and tend to you. Have you adjusted well?” 

“As well as we could in all of this chaos,” Ryver admitted, tilting his head slightly to press further into the palm of Eos’s hand. 

“Which means not at all,” Rayne stated in her typical blunt manner, but still settled into his caress as much as her brother did. 

“Well,” Eos soothed, taking note of his other new addition slowly making his way over to them out of the corner of his eye but not fully acknowledging him yet. “Hopefully we can get you properly settled in the manor. There will be many rooms in which you can choose from to have as your own, be that with or without each other. And perhaps we can visit a wizarding market on the continent to purchase you more comfortable clothes and new wands, hmm?” 

“Can we?” They asked, so in tune with one another that their words were in sync. 

Eos felt himself calm more under their hopeful yet cautious expressions, his twins so unused to being cared for and doted on. He vowed to spoil them rotten in the next few days, before he started their training. 

“If most of the work is finished by tomorrow, then I don’t see why not. Would you like to come along, Gellert?” Eos offered, finally meeting those ice and coffee eyes as he presented the dark wizard with a peace offering. “You are also in need of a new wardrobe and wand.” 

“So long as we avoid the Fatherland,” the blonde said, accepting the olive branch though they both knew their conversation from earlier was far from over. 

“There is more on the continent than just Germany, Gellert,” Eos teased good-naturedly, earning a small smirk from the other man. “I was thinking France. I haven’t walked Place Cachée in quite a while.” 

“Can we visit the quidditch store?” Rayne asked, her mahogany eyes glinting with excitement. 

“And the book store?” Ryver added, his own controlled expression barely hiding his hope. 

“Of course, mii kiirre,” Eos assured, carding his fingers through their dark purple hair. “We can go wherever you’d like, be it an ice cream parlor or the top of the Eiffel tower.” 

The two traded looks of disbelief with one another before they turned bright, admiring eyes towards him, Rayne unable to hide her grin and Ryver unable to hide his awe. Eos gave them both a fond smile before he pressed a gentle kiss to both their foreheads before he extended a hand to both of them like he’d done when he’d swept them away from their dreadful life as imprisoned orphans. 

“But first, we must settle into our new home,” he said, giving them both a gentle squeeze when they immediately placed their hands in his. He turned briefly to his dark wizard, raising an eyebrow which was answered with a soft shake of his head. Turning back to his charges, he gripped their hands just a bit tighter before he spun them, disapparating them from the clearing with a slight pop. 

They landed in a commotion that rivaled the cacophony Eos had woken to, women and men coming and going as they floated boxes and supplies to be packed away into their new homes. He was unsurprised to see that a few tents had been set up as well, some of his aarre reluctant to leave the familiarity of their old homes. Lupa was at the center of the mayhem, shouting directions and answering questions. She gave him a firm nod when she caught sight of him, sweeping her arm toward the largest building in the small village. 

It was a handsome mansion that rose up high above the other buildings, made entirely from a dark cherry wood that built up the facade in thick clapboard planks. The gable roofing was made only of hard angles and straight edges, the fascias peaking past the apex of the roof to cross decoratively. Towering pillars took the brunt of the weight from the building’s front, beautifully carved with decorative knotwork that held up the jettied story to create a shaded overhand in front of two large decorative doors depicting a detailed relief mural of magical creatures: veela playing in the clouds while thestrals raced through the forests, Chinese fireballs roaring proudly from mountain spires while Hebridean blacks peaked out from their sea caves, merfolk singing on rocky outcrops while selkies jumped from the waves. It was a breathtaking display, and Eos ran his fingers over it reverently with a beaming smile. 

“Are you going to just keep looking at the door, or are you going to go in?” Rayne asked, yelping when her brother smacked her over the head. 

Eos huffed a laugh at their antics, ruffling her long, wavy locks before he gestured the two heavy doors open with a wave of his arm. “Welcome to your new home, mii kiirre.” 

The doors swung open with a quiet groan to admit them into a vast atrium, the bright light of the afternoon sun shining in through large skylights that were placed in between the exposed, arching rafters. A grand, double staircase bracketed by two open archways led up immediately after the foyer, opening out onto a balconied landing that stretched on into three hallways. Eos could hear Ymir’s mild but authoritative voice drifting through the southernmost corridor and gestured for the twins to follow him. 

They passed by a multitude of doors, all containing the bare minimum of a bed and a dresser. Eos could see separate doors in a few of the rooms he passed which he assumed led to adjacent bathrooms. They would be a modified version, his aarre - as well as himself - leaning towards a more natural setting of streams and waterfalls than bathtubs and showers, but it was more convenient to create a room with an artificial waterfall than terraforming the earth to create a natural one. 

They stopped at the very end of the hallway where a smaller pair of double doors led into the master suite. The inside was busy, with three others and Ymir all hovering objects about the room and storing clothes into a dressing room. They stopped short when they realized he was in the room, bowing low. 

“Mii aarre,” Eos greeted, placing a hand on the tops of their heads before making his way over to Ymir who he greeted with a caress to his cheek. “Mii diivi. How are you all fairing?” 

“Well, Mo’ah,” Ymir replied, gesturing to the room. “Katya and Terran did a wonderful job building the manor and furniture. It makes it easier to unpack, knowing that they made a place for everything.” 

And they had, too: besides the dressing room, there was also a small nook that was lined in bookshelves and held a great stone fireplace. A large, gnarled stump was situated in front of it, serving as a coffee table, its hollowed center filled with clear glass that glowed mutely from within. Situated around it were two comfy looking armchairs and a settee, their mild grey tones complementing the paleness of the stump. 

The western most wall held a glass door, decorated in elegantly arching bands of metal, that led out to a modest balcony facing the lake. Two broad, circular windows bracketed it, their frames opened to let in the sweet summer breeze and the sound of the forest surrounding them, their panes echoing the pattern in the door. 

The bed was pushed up against the southern wall and was partially hidden by a gorgeous, russet, hanging canopy. Its wooden frame was as pale as the stump table, and only raised off the floor by about foot and cradling a downy mattress that had already been piled with his soft furs and pillows. At the foot of the bed was a large fur carpet, its solid, dark grey colouration broken in select places by a amalgamation of spotted and striped patterns. 

The eastern wall held the entrance to the dressing room as well as the bathroom, which Eos glanced into briefly. Just as he’d expected, there was a deep pool set into the floor with a moderately sized waterfall trickling over embossed stones covered in spongy mosses. Strings of herbs lined the walls underneath shelves that held cosmetic potions, lathering perfumes, and scented candles. Steam wafted up from the opaque surface of the water, heat and minerals making it cloudy, dissipating almost instantly through the work of a household charm so as not to choke the air with moisture. Light filtered in from the row of skylights, giving the room a more open feeling. A small touchstone to the side released a downpour above the pool when Eos stroked his thumb across it creating a symphony of plinks and splashes. 

Eos turned the overhead off, returning to his bedroom where Ryver and Rayne had made themselves comfortable on the settee. They were making polite, if not wary, conversion with the others in the room - or more accurately, Ryver was. Rayne was just scowling guardedly - but ceased when he reached them. He gave them both a calming pet to the tops of their heads before turning to Ymir with a pleased smile.  
“Remind me to give Katya and Terran a reward before the month is over. They’ve done a very thorough job.” 

“Yes, Mo’ah,” Ymir bowed, returning to directing the room as Eos guided his two charges back out of the room, gesturing to the many doors that they’d passed on their way through. 

“Any room before the halfway point is free for you to choose and decorate as you see fit. The rest I would like to keep open for any guests we might have.” 

Rayne glanced at her twin before she grinned evilly and shoved past him, giving herself a head start on looking through all the rooms. Ryver gave a growl of irritation before bounding after her, both of them shouting insults back and forth in Ukrainian. They barely managed to avoid Gellert when the dark wizard turned the corner, eyebrows raised as Ryver yelled a rather explicit string of curses after his sister. 

“Such vulgarity from children,” he remarked as he walked up to Eos. 

“I have been aggressively and emphatically assured that, since they are nearly sixteen, they are not children,” Eos replied, sharing an amused look with the blonde before he took the other’s arm and guided him to a room just a few paces away from his own. “This will be your room.” 

“Keeping me close to keep an eye on me?” Gellert asked, his words spiteful. 

“If I wanted to keep an eye on you, you would be trussed up in the basement instead,” Eos informed him, pausing in the threshold. “You may chose another room, if you wish, but I thought you would appreciate the view.” 

He slipped into the room without waiting for an answer, a golden haze overtaking his sight as the setting sun bounced over the surface of the lake, shining into the room through unobstructed, floor-to-ceiling windows. Two armchairs were turned to face the lake, bisected by a circular side table and sitting cozily by a small fireplace. A substantial bed was situated on the other side of the room, hidden from the setting sun by an indented wall. On its right were two bookcases, empty for now, but still standing proudly in the golden light. 

“After I released you from Nurmengard,” Eos said, settling against the far wall to better see Gellert’s expression when the dark wizard finally deigned to enter the room. “I sent instructions for a room to be built with broad windows that had a view of the lake. I believe you’ve had quite enough time to look at four walls with nothing more than a small slit as a mockery of a window for reprieve.” 

He smiled softly when the blonde took a shuddery breath, appreciating the way the golden light of the waning sun seemed to set Gellert’s hair alight, turning it to liquid gold. He took cautious steps into the room, as if afraid it were all a dream and, if he moved too fast, it would disappear. His fingers traced idly over every surface they could reach, marking them as a cat would mark its territory by rubbing its scent across them. He stopped just before the windows, his sky and earth eyes shining with emotion as he took in the amber hue of the lake before him, the trees beyond a faint smudge of emerald on the horizon. 

Eos moved to stand next to him, taking his larger hand in his own before he pressed their joined hands into the glass pane, their arms slipping through the window as if they were reaching through a curtain of water. They stepped out onto a balcony, a lone wood chair and table set of to the side for a person to sit and enjoy the scenery in solitude. 

“The windows are charmed so that you can’t see the balcony,” Eos explained, running his thumb lightly over the back of Gellert’s hand. “ It can be removed of course, but I thought you might like somewhere for yourself, somewhere where you could be alone.” 

“I think I’ve had more than enough time alone,” Gellert replied bitterly, but his expression was more relaxed than it had been previously. 

Eos hummed thoughtfully, gently pressing his thumb into lax muscle. “Yes, but it was never by choice. Rarely are we ever allowed to make our own choices. At least in this, you may choose what you want, Gellert: to surround yourself with others or to hide away for a moment of peace.” 

“Yet you won’t let me choose what I most desire,” the blonde murmured, his grip tightening on Eos’s hand. “You will keep me from the one thing my heart craves.” 

“I have already told you I would let you do as you pleased,” Eos negated, turning his hard, unsympathetic gaze on the dark wizard. “I only told you how that tragedy will play out: you will find him, you will plead with him, and he will cast you aside. He is old and tired and desperate enough that he is willing to die to keep the world he knows from falling apart. Joining you would only shatter it more.” 

“You speak so confidently, as if you know this to be set in stone,” Gellert whispered, brows furrowed as he stared at Eos with an emotion somewhere between confusion and frustration, “As if you have already seen such a future come to pass.”

Eos tensed, his hand constricting around Gellert’s so tightly that the blonde gave a hiss of pain before he wilted, giving the other’s hand an apologetic squeeze as a tired sigh fell from his lips.

“I suppose it’d be best to explain it properly than to try and outright lie when I’ve been so adamant,” he conceded. “If you truly wish to know then I will tell you, Gellert, but this story of mine isn’t a fairytale. It’s devastating and messy and will likely change your opinion of me. Do you still want to know?”

“Yes,” Gellert breathed, his eyes alight at the prospect of finally getting some answers.

Eos gave another deep sigh, dropping the other’s had to conjure another chair around the low table. He collapsed into it wearily, focusing jaded emerald eyes on his dark wizard. “Come sit with me then, Gellert Grindelwald, and I will tell you the story of a boy who was never able to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can anyone tell that I've been reading Hannigram fics based on the deduction scene with the Golden trio? 👀  
> Which brings me to my fanfic recommendation for this chapter: [_Overcoming_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10024469) by [purefoysgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purefoysgirl/pseuds/purefoysgirl)! It's such a wonderful story of redemption and love and definitely influenced this chapter because I binged it all within three days! >~<  
> ALSO HAVE Y'ALL SEEN WHO IS REPLACING JOHNNY DEPP AS GRINDELWALD IN FANTASTIC BEASTS??? THAT'S RIGHT IT'S MADS MOTHER FUKING MIKKELSEN. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BOYCOTT THE MOVIE NOW WHEN MY GREAT CANNIBAL FATHER IS IN IT??? Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to the theaters for a while anyway (no covid for me, thank you), but come on. Mads Mikkelsen? They might as well as signed the devil into the part because so many people are gonna be hard pressed to make the decision to either boycott or go support their favorite cannibalistic serial killer.
> 
> And that is where I'm going to leave that, or else I'll end up raving forever about my great, amazing, talented, funny, handsome father Mads Mikkelsen.
> 
> If anyone is wondering, I based the mansion exterior on the concept design for the palace in “He Is Dragon” or “I Am Dragon” depending on what country you live in I guess. I’ve not actually seen the movie myself but the trailers I watched seemed pretty interesting. You can look at the concept art [here](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wEWyX)!
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Pruhzah vu - good morning  
> Mo'ah - maker, creator, mother  
> Aarre - servants  
> Mii diivi - my sparrow  
> Lah - magic  
> Lahii - personification of magic  
> Mii Raii - my god  
> Mii vul kro - my dark mage/wizard  
> Kriilot - killjoy (literally to kill happiness)  
> Lahsos - wixen, witch, wizard, magical person  
> Muhnne - muggles  
> Mii joraan kiirre - my young children  
> Mii kiirre - my children  
> 
> 
> Someone suggested that I put translations in the chapter after something has been said in a different language and I considered it for a bit but ultimately decided that it would take away from the authenticity of the dialogue. Having said that, do you guys want me to keep including words that show up a lot like aarre and muhnne? Or should I just stick to words and phrases that aren't common so I'm not flooding the translations section? Let me know in the comments!


	6. Kul Nis Oblaan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eos reveals his origins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. MUCH. DIALOGUE!!!!!
> 
> Gods above and below! This chapter fought me tooth and nail which is hilarious because I’ve had Eos’s backstory written since the beginning and yet I couldn’t get it to conform to a narrative tone! And then I thought I had at least 7000 words and it turns out I only have a little over 4000! ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿
> 
> So here you go, I hope y'all enjoy because I'm a little burnt out from fighting this chapter and I'm also back at school for my last semester of college so idk how busy I'm gonna be but if it was anything like last semester, then I'm doomed. :3p
> 
> _**PLEASE NOTE TW:** Mentions of multiple suicide attempts._
> 
> It’s important to Eos’s backstory and I don’t get very detailed, but it’s there so please be aware of it. I will put asterisks before and after the relevant paragraphs if you’d like to skip over it, but like I said it’s kind of important to how he became the way he is.

**~ Kul Nis Oblaan ~**  
_A Boy Unable to Die_

* * *

They sat in silence for quite a while, a myriad of minute expressions filtering across Eos’s face while he tapped out an unsteady rhythm on his chair’s arm. Gellert was reluctant to interrupt what seemed to be an extensive internal battle, having already faced the man’s temper that afternoon, so he let the silence build and looked out over the small waves of the lake as the sun made its last attempts to brighten the evening sky into a vicious red.

It really was a lovely view. So much more compelling to gaze at than the bleak, snowy emptiness of the Alps. The fact that Eos had even thought he would desire such a view still left him reeling. That such a man - a god; a merciless force of nature - would ever stop to think about the desires of his faithful, their needs and comfort... it was still unfathomable to him.

When Gellert had been younger, more powerful and in command of an army, his needs had come before that of his followers because a body could not function without its head. But here, everyone was given as much as they desired, their wants and needs met before their leader’s, cared for as if they really were Eos’s own children and in return they worshipped the ground he walked on. Kindness, from a ruthless master, apparently bred loyalty.

“You are thinking almost as arduously as I am, mii vul kro.”

The endearment tugged at the corner of Gellert’s mouth. He hadn’t known what the words meant when Eos had first said them and had assumed it was some bastardized version of English like the Americans used. Eos had laughed when Gellert had told him as much, an amused glint in his eyes when he explained that he was speaking a forgotten language used to communicate with dragons, and that he was calling him a dark wizard and not a corvid.

 _“Though it is amusing that you thought I was calling you ‘my evil crow’. I shall never be able to think of it as anything else now when I address you so.”_ Eos had teased, ignoring all of Gellert’s protesting as he’d left him in the healer’s tent to be tended to.

Gellert’s smile fell as he returned his attention back to the present as he answered, “I’m thinking about how you stole a man’s heart right from his chest without even batting an eye. I’m thinking of how you treat your followers as if they were your own flesh and blood. I’m thinking,” he stressed, turning to meet Eos’s killing curse eyes. “That you are a contradiction: a cruel deity who enacts violence as a last resort, offering kindness and compassion where others would inflict pain and suffering.”

Eos grinned, so faint that it was more a grimace than a smile, as he murmured slowly, “I suppose that’s one interpretation of my character that could be made. I feel that it is one that many others would argue over, though.”

“Your followers certainly wouldn’t,” Gellert countered.

“No,” Eos hummed, his lips tugging up ruefully as he looked out over the darkening scenery. “I think they would perhaps argue the most.”

Gellert opened his mouth to argue but paused, observing the look of pained regret and disappointment that shadowed Eos’s face. He recalled how many of the man’s followers seemed to avoid him without trying to appear like they were, many turning meek and quiet when moments before they had been jovial and boisterous. Even Lupa, who Gellert learned was one of Eos’s first followers, tended to become more reserved in the man’s presence. Perhaps there were truths to Eos’s words.

Then again, “They waited a thousand years for your return. Does that not speak of their devotion to you?”

Eos gave a soft laugh, turning bright eyes back to Gellert. “Are you debating the loyalty of my aarre with me?”

“I’m merely reminding you to give credit where credit is due,” Gellert smirked.

Eos gave another faint laugh before he settled more comfortably in his chair. “I forget sometimes that you held a following of your own.”

Gellert scowled, huffing in displeasure, “We are _not_ here to talk about me.”

“No, we’re not,” Eos agreed, regarding him with a more focused gaze before he asked, “What do you know of the Deathly Hallows, Gellert?” 

Gellert blinked at the sudden change of topic, answering slowly, “They’re said to be the instruments of Death, given as boons to the brothers Cadmus, Ignotus, and Antioch Peverell for creating a great, living bridge from life magic to assure their safety as they crossed a treacherous river. The items were a wand more powerful than any in creation, crafted from an elder tree, a stone that could return the dead to life, pulled from the treacherous river, and Death’s own cloak of invisibility. Together they make the Deathly Hallows and if one was to master all three of them, he would then be the master of Death.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Eos muttered, breathing a soft laugh when Gellert gave him an irritated glare, unappreciative of the vague way in which Eos preferred to speak. “You’re not wrong, for the most part. The Peverell brothers _did_ make a living bridge from life magic, but they weren’t greeted by Death and he didn’t make the Hallows for them. No, they saw what they could do with life magic, how they could command the forces of nature, and wondered if they could do the same with death magic. 

“I know that doesn’t sound as exciting as Death popping in to reward them since everyone knows how limited necromancy is, but death magic is different. Necromancy is like a watered down version when compared, focusing on manipulating the body, whereas death magic focuses on the aspects of the soul and the energies of the aether. And the Peverell brothers were masters at manipulating the energies of the mortal world, so how hard could it be to manipulate the energies of the aetheral plane? As it turned out, much harder than they thought:

“Antioch created the elder wand after thirteen attempts and quite by accident when he spilled a vial of banshee tears over the hair of a stillborn thestral foal he was using as the core. Cadmus somehow came into the possession of a petrified psychopomp and after many trials and errors and most of the petrified psychopomp’s bones, he decided in a rather immature manner to toss the entire corpse into a river on the night of a full moon. What was left of it the next morning was one crystallized eye that had sunk to the bottom of the river and was washed of its impurities, creating the resurrection stone. Ignotus didn’t necessarily create his Hallow by accident, though I’m sure he never meant to be attacked by a lethifold nor did he believe he would have the means to kill it and leave its corpse intact while it was still invisible.”

Eos’s cloak gave a faint shudder, curling around him tightly until he ran a hand over the rigid and bumpy cloth, soothing it.

“So the Hallows are merely mortal instruments? There is no entity of Death and mastering the Hallows will not grant you mastery over it?” Gellert asked, his tone disappointed.

Eos mouth twisted in a moue of distaste, turning his gaze out onto the now black waters of the lake. “I didn’t say that. If such a thing were true, my life would have likely been much simpler than it is now. No, Death exists, and he isn't as compliant to his master as one would think.”

Gellert perked up at that. 

“You mastered the Hallows,” he surmised, expression shifting from disbelief to shock to amazement. “You were able to conquer Death. That’s how you’ve lived for so long.”

“Clever crow,” Eos remarked, chuckling when Gellert scrunched his nose in indignation. “I did, but at the time I didn’t know I had. It was a fluke really; I ended up mastering all the Hallows by chance or by others’ designs.”

Eos’s expression blanked then, his features becoming unreadable as he continued, “I didn’t think anything of it at first. There were many, more important things that required my attention. We’d been at war, you see. I helped to rebuild our world: hunting down dark wizards and witches, sponsoring bills for new legislation, creating memorials and new organizations. By the time I noticed that I’d stopped aging, I had a wife and a child with another on the way.”

“What did you tell them?” Gellert prodded when Eos didn’t immediately continue.

“What could I tell them? At the time I knew nothing other than the fact that I was still as young as I’d been when I’d held the elder wand in my hand and thrown it away,” Eos muttered bitterly, tapping his index finger on the chair arm in agitation, though his face remained stoic. “I’m not sure what I expected when she finally realized, but my wife was devastated: for herself, for our children, but most of all for me. All my life I’d had nothing but tragedy after tragedy and here I was, yet again, with the greatest tragedy of all.”

“You see your immortality as tragedy?” Gellert asked incredulously.

“Gellert, no sane being wants to live forever,” Eos chuckled dryly. “Life is already so exhausting. Who wants to keep dealing with the pettiness of humanity until the end of time?”

“But you could change humanity! You could make things different! You've all the time you could ever want!” Gellert argued, frustrated beyond belief that Eos didn’t see what a gift he’d been given.

“But my family didn’t,” Eos murmured, his voice so raw it drew Gellert’s rage up short. “My friends, my wife, my children, they all grew up and left me. Do you know what it’s like, to sit on your child’s deathbed and watch them fade away? To see them grey, and wrinkled, and fragile while you’re as young and healthy as you were ninety years ago? To hear them take one last shuddering breath, and then feel the warmth leave their hands? Do you know how terrible it is to see their faces in their grandchildren’s grandchildren and know that it’s not them? That they’re never coming back? That you can’t join them, wherever they are, because of some sick twist of fate you never asked for?”

*******

Eos turned deeply tired eyes to him before asking in an almost dead tone, “Do you know what it’s like to be so desperate to die that you take your own life?”

Gellert didn’t answer, but then, he supposed he didn’t need to.

“It’s awful,” Eos informed him, giving a humorless smile, his gaze far away. “It’s the worst feeling in the world. No matter how many times I tried, no matter how I did it, I would always wake back up right where I’d started: healthy, alive, and alone. There were never any traces of my death: no scars, any viscera or blood rapidly decayed and evaporated. Sometimes I thought I was going mad, or that I was already dead and I was in hell. I lost a few years like that, just trying to kill myself, losing my mind because I couldn’t tell if anything was real or not.

*******

“After my first fourth great grandchild was born, I left. I didn’t want to see my wife or children in the faces of their descendants anymore, so I traveled. For decades I wandered, never staying long anywhere due to my situation, but by that point I didn’t care anymore. I watched time pass on, numb to everything; witnessing countries rise and fall, watching war between the lahsosse and muhnne rage, seeing the planet shrivel away with each passing year. I was not quite to my eighth century when a cataclysmic device was accidentally set off, devastating the planet and all its living creatures.

“All except for me,” he sighed, sagging in his chair. “I had thought that, if nothing else, then at least that inferno of heat - hotter than any dragon fire I’d ever faced - would kill me. It was near instantaneous, melting my skin, incinerating my bones, more painful than any spell someone could imagine, but just like every other time I ended my life, I woke up, the only survivor, to a world of smoke and darkness: the vegetation charred to brittle spindles, the earth nothing but powdered soot, all the oceans evaporated, the sky filled with roiling, electric storm clouds that spat ash instead of rain. And upon waking in that hellscape, Death finally came to me and still refused to release me from my title as his master.”

Gellert shuddered at the dark fire that danced in Eos’s eyes and the charge of magic that crackled in the air like lightning as Eos muttered, “Death found the whole situation hilariously appropriate. The only person to survive the catalyst to the end of the world was his master, unable to leave the world behind like everyone else due to shortsightedness; because I hadn’t taken the story of the Hallows more seriously than believing they existed, I threw them away, destroying all but the invisibility cloak.”

There was a lull in the conversation as Gellert processed all the new information he had been told. By then, the sun had fully set, casting both men into darkness. The only light came from the stars and the few fireflies still out that late in the season, twinkling over the lake and inside the shrouded forest. Quiet waves and the calls of nocturnal insects and animals made a calming symphony, but it wasn’t enough to calm Gellert’s racing thoughts.

“That’s why you kept your title,” he said suddenly, interrupting nature’s soft cadence. “There was no way for someone to relieve you of it, not if no one could find the Hallows and master them.”

“Exactly,” Eos agreed unhappily.

“I don’t understand,” Gellert murmured. “You say you destroyed the wand and the stone, but the elder wand still exists. I was in possession of it and now-”

“And now Albus Dumbledore has it. Yes, I know.” Eos finished, sounding more weary than was possible. “It will be a few years before I destroy it.”

“I- what?”

Eos gave him a smirk, barely visible in the gloom of night as he explained, “You’ve been assuming that all of this took place in the past. That I lived so long ago my history was lost to time. It’s not a bad theory, but it’s not a correct one either.”

Gellert gave a frustrated growl, “What, then? Are you saying you’re from the future?”

Eos merely smiled wider, his teeth glinting in the dark, and Gellert’s eyes widened at the implication.

“You lie,” he whispered.

“You have such a low opinion of me,” Eos chuckled. “I suppose it would be more appropriate to say I’m from the present as I was born July 31, 1980. My fifteen year old self is actually running around somewhere in London, currently.”

“That’s- How can you- How is that even _possible_?” Gellert asked incredulously.

Eos grinned. “Magic.”

Gellert leveled him with a flat look, pulling an amused laugh from the other man.

“Death’s magic, to be more specific,” Eos clarified, sneering slightly. “Death gave me a choice after I woke up to that grey wasteland: remain to nurture the world back into a state of life or return to an earlier time and guide the world to a different future.”

“So you chose the latter?”

Eos hummed, tilting his head in thought before he said, “Imagine living in your prison, but instead of occasionally seeing a guard that checked in on you in case you died, you saw no one. There’s no icy mountains or blue skies or the sounds of distant birds, only grey ash and silence,” Gellert grimaced, and Eos nodded at his understanding. “I picked the latter, if only to preserve whatever sanity I had left.”

“And how much was that?” Gellert snorted.

“More than you might think,” Eos admitted, grinning sharply. His expression sobered as he continued, “As soon as I’d made my choice, the world around me seemed to dissolve, shifting into a greener, if not more hostile, environment.”

“So Death sent you back to... what, the start of the common era?”

“Not hardly,” Eos scoffed. “That bastard sent me back to the beginning of magical humans. Probably found it ironic.”

“The start of- _How old are you_?” Gellert choked out, his words strained.

“Hmm... I’m not exactly sure,” Eos mused, tapping at his bottom lip in thought. “I was approached by Death around my eight hundredth year... then he sent me back somewhere in the stone age when humans were beginning to evolve from their more primitive ancestors and developing magical pathways. I’d guess somewhere around two million, give or take a few hundred thousand years.”

Gellert sucked in a sharp breath, “Two million?”

“Maybe,” Eos shrugged, unbothered. “My mind wasn’t the most stable thing, I was still plenty insane in the beginning, and some of that time is a blur due to the dissonance long distance time travel creates, what with time trying to balance itself out after being ripped to shreds. Two million sounds correct, but I’m mostly guessing.”

Gellert slumped back in his chair then, mind racing. That explained so much: Eos’s casual reference to impossible feats of magic, his detachment and disregard of the sociopolitical backlash he was already garnering from magical communities - though no one quite knew who to blame for all the chaos he’d been causing, the way he seemed to both see and look through a person when he addressed them. No wonder Eos treated him like a child throwing a tantrum. To Eos, that’s _exactly what he was_.

Gellert rested his face in his hands and groaned as everything he’d learned began to slot together like puzzle pieces to fit with what he’d discovered on his own.

He’d wondered how Eos was going to quell the masses when he eventually wiped out more than half of the world's population. Hell, he’d wondered how Eos even planned to do _that_. It wasn’t like a war with the muggles would be easy, Gellert would certainly know, but now he knew _why_ Eos wasn’t concerned about it. A witch or wizard’s magical core never stopped growing. The development certainly slowed down as they aged, especially when reaching the age of majority, and every witch and wizard’s growth rate was different depending on certain factors, but with two million years of magical growth... Eos wouldn’t _need_ to play nice with the magical populations, not when he could just snap his fingers and send them all to their knees.

“I must be dreaming,” Gellert murmured to himself, startling when Eos let out a sharp laugh. He glanced up to find the other grinning at him with a mixture of amusement and incredulity.

“You spent the better portion of your life searching for three objects blessed by Death, which were only recorded in fairy stories and the journals of raving madmen, hoping to gain immortality and _my age_ is where you draw the line on feasibility?” He demanded in disbelief.

“Well when you say it that way, it certainly sounds like it shouldn’t be,” Gellert sighed, rubbing at his temples. “But two million years is... your magical core must be _staggering_.”

Eos merely raised an eyebrow, as if asking Gellert if he only just now realized that.

Gellert huffed an exasperated laugh, “You are infuriating.”

“Yes, I do tend to have that effect on people,” Eos agreed with a smirk before regarding Gellert with curious eyes. “I must admit that I’m surprised that you haven’t asked for more details about Death and his Hallows.”

“I thought you said they weren’t his?”

“No, I said he didn’t gift them as boons,” Eos corrected. “He most certainly laid claim to them after the three Peverell brothers created them.”

Gellert gave a tired sigh, rubbing at his temples again in a bid to stave off his impending headache. “I assume you’re going to explain what that means?”

“I suppose I will since I brought it up,” Eos chuckled. “Since the Hallows were basically flukes, they were more like natural forces of magic than crafted artifacts. Death knew that, should anyone else try to replicate the Peverells’ accidental successes, there would be a possibility of the world ending much sooner than it did in my original timeline and then he’d be the one who’d have to fix it. So he struck a deal with the Peverells: give the objects to him and he would grant them a mastery over his magic.”

“Why would they do that?” Gellert asked, brows furrowed in confusion. “If they knew how powerful their creations were, why not refuse the deal?”

“Ah, but they didn’t know how powerful the Hallows were and, if you recall, had quite a difficult time creating them at all,” Eos explained. “That isn’t to say that they necessarily wanted to give them away, but what they had been after the whole time was unlocking the secrets of death magic and giving Death their accidental creations seemed a small price to them.”

“How cunning,” Gellert mused.

Eos hummed in vague agreeance, glaring out at the surrounding darkness.

“You,” Gellert wet his lips, hesitating when Eos focused his cold expression on him. “You don’t seem to hold a favorable impression of Death.” 

“He’s definitely not in my favor,” Eos muttered, his body tense as his eyes regained that weary look. “There was a time in my life where I utterly despised Death and his Hallows. It’s not a time I like to remember and I’ve mostly gotten over it, but the bitterness of being denied the chance to move on with the people I cared about still lingers.” Eos paused then scoffed, “If anything, the damn bastard probably finds my residual resentment amusing, what with my greatest desire being death: craving death and yet resenting it too. You might not be too far off in calling me a contradiction, but sometimes Death was all I had. It’s hard to hate your only companion.”

“What about your followers?”

“I didn’t discover how to pass on my immortality until a few centuries into the common era,” Eos admitted, albeit somewhat sheepishly. “All of my faithful are young; none are older than two thousand years.”

“That’s not young,” Gellert grumbled to himself, drawing a delighted laugh from Eos.

“Not to you, maybe,” Eos teased. Gellert couldn’t help but grin, the other’s ironic amusement contagious.

“This is ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “You realize that, don’t you? You being two million years old is absurd. You don’t even look thirty!”

“Yes, well, if there’s one thing I enjoy about immortality, it’s the unending youth I possess. Though I quite hated it when I was younger. I technically stopped aging at eighteen but I’ve done a few rituals to permanently age myself older. I now thoroughly enjoy my looks and the constant attention they gain me,” Eos gloated, his relaxed posture exuding a smug superiority.

“I don’t think the current attention you’re attracting is due to your fair looks,” Gellert mused, shaking his head when Eos merely flashed him a shark like grin. “You mentioned you stopped aging at eighteen. Is that when you mastered the Hallows?”

“Yes, though I’m hoping to circumvent the events that lead to my younger counterpart obtaining all three Hallows.”

“You said he’s fifteen. That means you only have three years to find all the Hallows.”

“Nervous I won’t get to them in time?” Eos chuckled as Gellert scowled at him. “No need to fret, Gellert. I know exactly where they are.”

“And your younger self? Do you know exactly where he is?”

Eos tilted his head, face unreadable as he murmured, “You want to know who I was.”

Gellert grimaced but nodded. He wasn’t particularly surprised he’d been caught, since he was being rather transparent, but he wasn’t exactly happy with it either.

Eos eyed him for a moment, tapping one of his fingers against the side of his face before he hummed, “I suppose there’s no harm in revealing it to you now. You likely would have figured it out eventually.”

He paused, pinning Gellert with a penetrating stare before he murmured in a guarded, almost sorrowful tone,

“My name... is Harry Potter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my beta and I actually had a really extensive conversation on Eos’s age. At first, he was only going to be about 12,000 years old and then we started theorizing about how long he lived until the world ended and why he was sent back in time and why would he be sent back only a few thousand years when humans have been evolving for a while. And so we settled on around 2 million. Give or take a few hundred thousand :)
> 
> I’m not particularly pleased with this chapter, but I just want to move past it so I can get to the others. I try to put as much effort into each chapter but sometimes I just get stuck, so maybe I’ll end up scraping it and redo it... or maybe not. I don’t really wanna look at it for a few weeks >:/
> 
> Whenever I get stuck or burned out in my writing, I go back and reread some of my favorite fan fictions. This chapter’s recommendation is [_Again and Again_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/439865) by [Athy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athy/pseuds/Athy). It’s a do-over fic about a MOD Harry who is jaded, darker, bitter, and just wants to die; but can't. It’s very politically involved (in the story, not in reality) and leans heavy on Machiavellian beliefs. I’ve never actually read any of Niccolo Machiavelli’s work but from the few quotes cited in this fic, I have highly considered reading them if only to broaden my knowledge of how a Machiavellian government or character would work. For those of you who don't know what Machiavellianism is, Wikipedia defines it as “a personality trait centered on manipulativeness, callousness, and indifference to morality”. It’s basically Tom in a nutshell if that helps simplify it. It’s also heavy on the Dumbledore bashing and just kind of... light bashing in general and gets a little nasty, which I know some of you don’t like, but they do a really wonderful job explaining why and it evolves as the story progresses.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Mii vul kro - my dark mage/wizard  
> Aarre - servants  
> Lahsosse - wixen, witches and wizards, magical people  
> Muhnne - muggles
> 
> For anyone who actually reads my long ass author’s notes till the end, my beta actually took a quick look at this one bc I was having such a hard time and do you know what their first response was?
> 
> Ghostie: Maybe death will join the throuple. Enemies to lovers XD


	7. Drun Dok Drekik

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pack of puppies beg for treats from their master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I have a few things to announce so _please read this note!_**
> 
> Hello my lovelies! I was going through my translations and I've gotten rid of a few words and changed a few. One of those words is “kiirre” but only in reference to Eos's followers who will now be referred to as “aarre” which means “servants”. I’ve also changed the word for muggles in the Ancient Tongue. It was "nil geinne" before but I didn't like having two words so I messed around with some spelling of the dragon word "mun" which means "human" or "man" and came up with "muhn". This will be how Eos refers to muggles from now on. 
> 
> **Now for the _really_ big announcement.** I have decided to stop being obstinate and have changed many of the full conversations in the ancient tongue to English so you all can read them uninhibited. I had a long talk with my beta about it and they agreed that it was obviously a problem that needed fixing if it kept getting brought up in the comments. I should have thought about it from a less biased perspective and for that, I apologize. I’ll still have a few words and phrases here and there with translation in the end notes, but no more full on conversations. I’ve also gone back and fine tuned some of my chapters. Not enough to call them completely edited, but they're more fleshed out and hopefully more comprehensible.
> 
> And I guess... warnings for this chapter include mentions of forced labor and implied (consensual) sexual torture, but that's more ambiguous than anything. Anyways, I think that's it from me. Enjoy the chapter my darlings!

**~ Drun Dok Drekik ~**  
_To Make a Dog Beg_

* * *

The days following Eos’s confession to Gellert were somewhat strained. Gellert, even from his isolated prison in the alps, had knowledge of who Harry Potter was. The implication that Eos was one of Europe’s most revered Light icons, even if in his very distant past, seemed to cause Gellert an immense amount of unease. Thus he had been avoiding Eos for nearly four days, though Eos didn’t hold it against him. The admission was something he was also dealing with rather poorly.

No one outside of Lukas and Lupa knew of his past, knew of what he had stood for. No one knew that he’d been a Light wizard: that he’d fought to ban branches of magic he had barely understood then and practiced now, that he’d fought for the muggles, in the beginning at least, and that’d he’d hunted down witches and wizards who were just like his aarre. It didn’t hurt that no one had the means to discover who he was thousands of years ago, which was an immense comfort he’d taken solace in. Gellert didn’t necessarily have the means either, but he was driven enough in his thirst for answers that he wouldn’t have let the matter rest until he’d known how Eos could be so sure of his predictions of the future.

It didn’t help that it had been a spur of the moment decision on Eos’s part, either. One that he didn’t necessarily regret, but was also having a hard time rationalizing it to his instincts, which were screaming at him to neutralize the wizard they now perceived as a threat. It wasn’t something he was too worried about. As each day passed, he regained more and more control over his magic and natural compulsions. It also didn’t hurt that he had absorbed the cores from all the wixen he’d killed recently, thus returning his magic quicker than if he had he simply pulled wild magic from the air. He still kept his distance from the blonde wizard though, just to be on the safe side.

Often, he found himself in the company of Ryver and Rayne, teaching them how to control and better wield their magic. The two siblings were both bright and powerful wixen, with a thirst to prove themselves that he utilized to push them further in their lessons on wandless magic. Lessons like the one he was currently overseeing.

Rayne grunted as the spell she’d been working on - a blasting curse - spluttered in her hands and sent her careening across the clearing, her body rolling as she hit the ground. Ryver had watched her go flying from where he was working on his own spell - a water charm - with wide eyes before he’d glanced over to where Eos was sitting a few meters away. When he didn’t react in any way to Rayne’s miscast spell, Ryver simply went back to his work, content to take his own cues from the older wizard. If Eos wasn’t concerned, then Rayne wasn’t injured enough to warrant panicking over like she’d been the first few lessons.

Rayne groaned only a few seconds later, pushing herself up on to her hands and knees before she snarled and smacked at the dirt with a closed fist. “Ugh, I can’t get this damn spell to work! I’ve been trying for an hour already!”

“No one masters a spell in just an hour, Rayne,” Eos replied simply, though not unkindly, from where he sat looking over his spies’ reports. “Especially not wandlessly. Get up and do it again.”

“This is so fucking stupid,” she growled, doing as he said and standing but instead of going back to her practice she turned to Eos, glaring at him with her fiery brown eyes. “We wouldn’t need to be doing this wandlessly if you would just take us to go get wands like you promised. You spend all this time talking about working hard to master our magic and centering ourselves to feel our core but you don’t tell us how to do that. Admit it, you just don’t want us to master our magic and become proper magicians!”

Eos halted in writing a response to one of his spies, looking up to the frustrated teen with a raised brow. “You think I’m purposefully hindering you? That by refusing you a wand, I’m limiting your magic?”

Rayne hesitated for a moment, a small flash of panic flickering in her eyes at his tone of disbelief before steeling herself with a challenging, “Yes.”

Eos held her gaze for a moment before he gave her a look of exasperated resignation, sighing, “If you’re certain, then.”

He pushed himself to his feet with an easy grace, huffing an amused laugh when Rayne took a hesitant step back. 

“Stand firm in your challenge, Rayne,” he said to her, sweeping his hand in the air to call a wand from one of the many storage huts to his hand, his emerald eyes amused as he stared down his young charge. “Otherwise you’ll look insincere and your opponent will take the chance to strike you down.”

Rayne bared her teeth at him but held her ground like he told her to. Eos gave her an approving smirk, twirling the wand in his hand lazily while the tension between them built in the air. 

“Eleven and a half inches, swishy, hazel and dragon heartstring. It should work for you.” Eos said, tossing the wand at her abruptly, unsurprised when her hand shot out to automatically grab it. 

She had pestered him relentlessly for a broom and quidditch set after they had visited Gaston McAaron’s, a quidditch boutique in Place Cachée. Eos had nearly gone spare at her relentless prodding, just barely keeping himself from hexing her. She had only escaped unscathed so far due to his own rationale holding out and Lupa’s constant reminder that Rayne was, while quite annoyingly persistent, still merely a child. It was also, in it’s own way, endearing. Rayne reminded Eos so much of himself at her age: brash, stubborn, hotheaded. He understood now what many of his teacher must have felt about him back then.

In the end, he had given into Rayne’s badgering, but through his own means. He had bought her the standard quidditch set with a beautiful pair of purple quidditch robes but he had crafted and enchanted her broom himself. There were too many situations he could see her getting into with a standard market broom, many of which he himself had dealt with. He wasn’t taking any chances that Rayne wouldn’t end up falling from her cursed broom or hexed, even if he was certain she would manage to keep herself from life threatening injuries.

She’d been in the air as soon as he’d presented her with the broom and quidditch set, racing after the golden snitch until it was too dark to see, and even then she’d only come inside because Eos had threatened to keep her broom under lock and key. She practiced her seeker skills for at least three hours every day since then, so it wasn’t a surprise to see her arduously honed reflexes snatch the wand out of the air.

Nor was it much of a surprise when she pointed it at him.

“ _Rayne_ ,” Ryver hissed in warning, giving up the pretense of practicing his magic to pin his sister with a look of reproach.

But Rayne didn’t even glance back at her twin, and her newly acquired wand, while it quivered slightly in her grasp, didn't lower an inch.

“That’s it, darling,” Eos smiled proudly. “Stand your ground with confidence. Though I’m curious, what do you think will happen to you if you attack me? You can’t apparate. You barely know any offensive spells. You don’t even know where we are.”

“That’s the problem!” Rayne shouted, brandishing the wand harshly. “How are you expecting us to fight!? What use are we if we can only defend ourselves with only the most basic charms?”

Eos blinked, taken aback.

“Fight?” He asked incredulously. “Why would you need to fight?”

“The war! I hear you talking about it all the time, don’t lie to me! You’re going to fight the _magli,_ that’s why you’re training us!” Rayne yelled, her grip on her wand so tight her hand was shaking. “But we can’t fight if we don’t know the spells and learning them wandlessly is taking too long! You’re hindering us by not giving us wands. You’re putting us at a disadvantage because you don’t actually want us. You think picking us up was a mistake so you’re trying to get us killed!”

A hand on her shoulder cut off her nearly hysteric tirade, Ryver offering her support by pulling her to him so they were chest to back. Eos stared at them in shocked silence while Rayne panted heavily, her eyes wide and manic before they began to well with shining wetness. 

“We’re trying so hard to become more powerful so we can fight,” she sobbed, smearing her tears over her cheeks as she wiped at them uselessly. “But at this rate it won’t be enough. We want to be useful to you, but you won’t let us. Are you going to leave us behind? Are we just burdens that you’ll to throw away?”

That forced Eos out of his shock.

“No!” He shouted, causing both Rayne and Ryver to startle at the intensity of his response, his body poised as if to strike out. Taking a stuttering breath, Eos forced himself to relax, pinching the bridge of his nose as he reigned in his emotions. When he felt as though he was less likely to go and hunt down whoever it was that’d failed his twins so thoroughly, he said in a softer tone, “Do not call yourselves that. _Never_ call yourselves that.”

“What are we then?” Ryver asked, his expression stoic but his voice trembling. “We do nothing but practice small acts of wandless magic and roam around the manor. How are we supposed to fight when we’re so unprepared?”

“Who said you were fighting?” Eos asked, bewildered.

The twins blinked at him in surprise.

Eos sighed, reaching a hand up to run through his hair in a distressed manner. “I would never ask either of you to fight in this war. You’re only fifteen.” Rayne opened her mouth to protest but Eos held up a hand to silence her. “Don’t try to argue specifics, darling. Sixteen in the winter does not count, nor would it matter. Ymir had to wait until he was seventeen before I allowed him to do anything more than chores.”

“But we don’t even do chores!” Rayne protested. “We haven't had to lift a single finger to help since coming here.”

“Tell me something, mii kiirre,” Eos murmured, slowly approaching them to smooth his thumbs under slowly drying eyes. “When did you first start doing chores?”

Both the twins were silent for a few hesitant seconds before Ryver admitted, “When we turned six.”

“And what chores did you do?”

They shared an uncertain look.

“Laundry,”

“And dusting,”

“And sweeping,”

“And weeding the yard,”

“And cooking meals,” Rayne whispered.

“And brewing potions,” Ryver confessed.

Eos hummed darkly, closing his eyes to shield his two charges from the raging fire burning within him. “And when did you get to take a break?”

Neither answered him.

“When did you get to relax?”

Again, neither one answered.

“When did you get to play?”

After another few minutes of strained silence, Eos pulled both of them into his arms, tucking them tightly to his chest. They both sucked in a sharp breath, their bodies tensed as they began to come apart at their ragged edges, shuddering sobs stifled through the fabric of Eos’s cotton tunic as they clung to him.

“That, mii kiirre, is why you haven't had to lift a finger to help since coming here,” he told them, gently running his fingers through their dark violet locks. “You have done more than your fair share of chores.”

Eos tugged them down with him to rest in a more relaxed position on the ground, holding them through their hiccupped whimpers and full body tremors while he soothed them with soft words, never stilling his nimble fingers from stroking through their hair.

“What are we supposed to do then?” Ryver murmured after he’d mostly calmed down, his voice hoarse and his body lax against Eos’s.

“Anything you want to do,” Eos answered easily, “You can focus on your education or your interests. If you want to spend a day shopping or sightseeing around the world, all you need to do is ask. Anything you want, I will get for you.”

“We want to be useful,” Rayne muttered into his shoulder from where she was half sitting in his lap. 

“Even if you won’t let us fight,” Ryver added, his hands clutching tightly at Eos’s tunic. “We want to do _something_.”

Eos sighed, pressing his lips firmly to both their foreheads as he held them tighter. “My stubborn little chinchinzles,” he murmured, humming in thought. “Alright, I can give you a task. But you are not allowed to fight. As soon as your mission is over, you will come straight home and you will stay put.”

“ _Mo’ah_ ,” they groaned in unison.

“Hush, mii anhmme,” Eos softly chastised, placing another kiss atop their brows. “Enjoy the free time you have now. It will be gone sooner than you might think.”

Rayne perked up at that. “When?”

Eos huffed a slightly exasperated laugh. 

“Impatient brat. I don’t have anything pressing that needs to be done but some reconnaissance...” he trailed off, an idea beginning to grow in his mind. It was nearly September. They were young enough that they likely wouldn’t raise any suspicions, and while it wouldn’t be necessarily be safe, it wouldn’t put them in mortal peril either. They would have to train relentlessly to get up to standard in their magic but a midyear transfer not being completely caught up wasn’t entirely uncommon.

“I promise it will before the year is out,” Eos told them, lightly brushing his fingers through their hair. “For now, mii kiirre, just rest.”

ϟ ϟ ϟ

When Ryver and Rayne’s tears had dried and their heads no longer throbbed from crying so hard, they decided to spend the rest of the day relaxing, basking in the warmth of the late summer sun and, at one point, swimming in the lukewarm water of the lake. Eos let his two charges talk him out of finishing his pile of reports, joining them in the water to conjure fantastical creatures from the blue surface of the lake, directing them to fly about and harmlessly chase after his twins.

Spent in such a lackadaisical way, the day quickly faded into night, and soon he was tucking both teenagers into their separate beds, brushing his lips softly over their brows before he made his way to his own private chambers. He spared only a few minutes in his ensuite to freshen up, pulling his hair out of his face and up into a looped ponytail. His cloak was out hunting for the night, so he settled on dressing in a sheer over robe before summoning the reports he hadn’t managed to get through over to the petrified stump that served as a coffee table, curling up into the comfortable suede surface of one of the armchairs.

The reports were mostly over what was happening in Britannia: who was doing what, what policies were in effect, which side of war was winning. There were a few things that hadn’t changed from his previous life: Lily and James Potter had still been murdered on Samhain, 1981, Sirius Black was still wanted dead or alive - though he was certain Cornelius would prefer if he were dead. 

But there were many more things that _had_ changed that Eos couldn’t quite make sense of: Alice and Frank Longbottom were both healthy and sane but their son had perished on the same night as the Potters and, since Alice was his godmother, Harry had been living with them for the past fifteen years. The Lestranges were all surprisingly not in Azkaban, nor was Barty Crouch Jr, though that particular fact had already been mentioned to him by many of his spies, all reporting that the proclaimed-dead man was running around Britannia trying to convince werewolf packs that lived in the British Isles to either join Voldemort or stay out of his way.

And there were many other Death Eaters who weren’t in Azkaban either, though they were the least of his concerns. Augustus Rookwood was still deeply ensconced in the Department of Mysteries and seemed to have found a partner in another one of the Unspeakables as they were rarely seen without each other. Felix Mulciber and Antonin Dolohov, as well as Evan Rosier and Cassius Selwyn who were both still alive and well, all married with children and all holding seats on the Wizengamot’s House of Lords. 

Much of these changed events regarding the imprisoned Death Eaters could be explained by Igor Karkaroff’s death. The cowardly man had been found just at the edge of France, screaming his voice box raw as his body had cooked from the inside out, his Dark Mark heating his blood until it boiled him alive. It wasn’t a precaution Voldemort had taken when Eos had been a teen, but perhaps this iteration of the Dark Lord had wised up and added preventative measures to offer an... _incentive_ to deter his Death Eaters from deserting him. 

That did not, however, explain the Lestranges continued freedom, nor the death of Neville Longbottom but the survival of his parents. It didn’t help much that most of what had happened the night of October thirty-first had been covered up, both by the Dark Lord and the Order of the Phoenix.

It was driving Eos up the bloody wall.

A knock at his door had him glancing away from the report he was reading over Lucius Malfoy, a man who - in this lifetime - had never been persecuted as a Death Eater, and thus still held much of his political sway as well as the respect of many politically minded witches and wizards. He had been holding quite a number of gatherings recently, according to Eos’s spies, with many people Eos knew from his past life to be Death Eaters or Dark supporters.

Waving a hand vaguely at the entrance to his room, Eos continued to scan through the heavily detailed report while the thick double doors swung open without even a faint creak.

“Mo’ah?” An uncertain voice called, the soft baritone immediately drawing Eos’s attention away from the sentence he was reading to the door, where Lukas’s tentative figure stood just outside his room. A brooding silence began to grow between them as sapphire eyes hesitantly met emerald before darting away quickly.

“Lukas,” Eos spoke at last, taking note in the way his aarre stiffened as he leaned back into his chair with an air of nonchalance that they both knew was false. “Are you finally done ignoring me then?”

“I wasn’t...” Lukas started, but trailed off at Eos’s flat expression with a grimace.

Eos sighed, tossing the report in his hand back onto the table as he regarded the other with a blank expression. “You’re lucky that my quick temper has cooled these past thousand years. I’ve killed for less - you’ve _seen_ me kill for less - and yet you still thought so little of provoking my ire. Did you think your position as my lover will keep you from my anger?”

Lukas didn't answer, keeping his gaze lowered, though Eos could see the irritated furrow of his brows.

When Eos didn’t continue his tirade, Lukas hesitantly took a few steps into the room, cautiously making his way to where Eos lounged before kneeling. Slowly, he reached a hand out, his cool fingers just barely brushing against the side of Eos’s calf before a pressure on his shoulder stopped him.

“If all you’ve come here for is seek the pleasure of my body, I will castrate you,” Eos hissed, the few candles in the room that were lit sputtering under the onslaught of his rapidly expanding magic as he dug the heel of his foot relentlessly into the divot of Lukas’s left shoulder. “I am planning a global war against the muhnne and anyone who protects them. I need all my aarre ready to attack at a moments notice and you have been avoiding me like a whipped dog.”

Lukas flinched at the comparison but wisely didn’t open his mouth to protest.

“I don’t have time for your pettiness,” Eos continued, forcing his wayward lover to meet his hellfire eyes with the point of his toes under his chin. “I don’t have time for one of my most trusted aarre to be pointlessly jealous of a man I haven’t even lain with. Not when my forces are so grossly outnumbered by the muhnne.”

“I apologize, mii Raii,” Lukas murmured, a hand shifting up to guide the foot Eos had tucked under his chin to Lukas’s brow, his lips ghosting over the bridge as he spoke. “I will accept any punishment you deem appropriate.”

Eos considered the man kneeling before him, a finger tapping rhythmically on the arm of his chair. “As much as you would deserve my wrath, I cannot have you indisposed, Lukas. There is too much that needs to be done. The lahsosse have grown lazy and complacent, letting the muhnne grow to such horrendous numbers.”

Eos gave an irritated scowl as he thought of just how many years had been lost while he had been trapped in his magic draining prison, allowing thousands of years of his hard work to be undone. 

“I must gain more allies to counter this and I must gain them fast,” he murmured absently to himself, thinking of a pair of piercing crimson eyes. A sharp grin spread over his lips as he though of those eyes narrowing in uncontrolled rage. To Lukas he said, “I will need you with me, incase we offend any... delicate sensibilities.”

Lukas gave a muted snarl, nuzzling Eos’s ankle. His cerulean eyes glinted with a blatant promise of violence that Eos met with a smirk.

“Still so defensive of me, kaali?”

A deep growl reverberated in Lukas’s chest, his teeth sharpening as if he was preparing to bury them in someone’s neck. “I will tear apart anyone who so much as looks at you in disrespect,” he vowed.

“Such devotion,” Eos hummed, trailing the insole of his foot down the side Lukas’s throat before slipping his leg over the other’s shoulder, tugging him closer. “While I treasure your proactive gallantry, it would be unwise of you to attack any potential allies without physical provocation. Keep your fangs sheathed, mal sos luni.”

“You like my fangs,” Lukas proclaimed, nipping lightly at Eos’s inner thigh cheekily.

“I also like giving treats to dogs who actually deserve them,” Eos stated, tightening his right leg around Lukas’s neck like a choke collar. “I don’t need disobedient mutts that won’t heel when told to.”

“You’re still so vicious in your scolding, Mo’ah,” Lukas chuckled, his voice pained as he laid his head in Eos’s lap, looking up with pleading eyes. “Must you really continue to refer to me as a dog?”

“Does it upset you, my little dhampir?” Eos asked, his lips pulled up in a mean smile even as he softy ran his fingers through Lukas’s obsidian hair. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to suffer through your new title as my disobedient little puppy until I believe that you’ve atoned for your transgression.”

Lukas gave another weak chuckle, his arms coming up to circle around Eos’s hips. Ocean blue eyes fluttered closed at Eos’s ministration, a contented sigh slipping past blunted teeth. “If that is to be my only punishment, then I suppose I shall just have to bear with it.”

“Not quite your only punishment,” Eos corrected, shifting into a more comfortable position as he brought his left leg over Lukas’s other shoulder, cradling his pale neck between his thighs even as he continued to pet through Lukas’s short hair. “I have need of the influence and resources Britannia’s Dark Lord possesses for a task I’m arranging for Rayne and Ryver. I have a fairly good idea as to where he is right now, so I plan to pay him a visit very soon. You will accompany me without complaint.”

Lukas grimaced. “You’re going to force me to watch as you woo him.”

“You know that I’ve always been fond of snakes,” Eos smirked, the fingers that had been combing through Lukas’s hair trailing down his forehead and over the bridge of his nose, tapping at it teasingly. “And I have always wondered just how many serpentine... _attributes_ his body assumed after his resurrection.”

“You’re incorrigible,” Lukas groaned, hiding his face in Eos’s thigh while his fingers squeezed softly around his hips. “Am I not enough for you?”

“You are,” Eos admitted easily, his own hands moving to cover the back of Lukas’s own. “When you’re not ignoring me. Besides, you never used to complain when I took multiple lovers, mii sos lun. Why the change of heart now?”

“Your past lovers have always been selected from your following, men who would have done anything for you. Now you’re seeking men from outside of your followers who have been - and are - known for their possessiveness and greed.”

“Afraid they’ll steal me away?” Eos whispered, drawing vague looping patterns over the back of Lukas’s hands and down his arms, the faint touches just as much a tease as his words.

Lukas growled, his body giving a hard shudder. It took several moments before he could speak clearly again. “Forgive my impertinence for saying so, but your magic is weaker than it was a thousand years ago. You’re still recovering yet you keep pushing yourself. If you’re not careful, you could very well be overpowered.”

“I am well aware of the current state my magic is in, Lukas” Eos hummed, letting little bursts of his magic flow from his fingertips and spark over Lukas’s sensitive skin, both to prove a point and to rile him up more. “Rest assured, I have multiple ideas on how to restore it as well as multiple ways of keeping both Gellert and Voldemort in check.”

“Ones you don’t plan on sharing with me?” Lukas breathed, shivering under Eos’s merciless teasing.

“Where would the fun in that be?” Eos grinned.

Lukas gave a huff of laughter that was quickly cut off by a groan as Eos’s magic danced down his arms, under his robes, and over the fine hairs covering his chest, jolting through his perked nipples. He gave a hoarse yelp as the magic continued further south, his spasming body held in place by Eos’s constricting thighs before slumping when the current was abruptly cut off, trailing pleading cobalt blue eyes up to meet lethal killing curse green.

“And I think, just to make sure you fully understand the consequences of your actions, I’ll add another feature to your punishment.” Eos purred, running a deceivingly tender hand over his lover’s faintly flushed cheek.

“Mo’ah- _!_ ” Lukas started, only to gasp and writhe as another pleasurable current of magic surged through his body.

“Now, my little puppy,” Eos cooed, his genial smile doing nothing to hide the sadistic enjoyment flickering in his poison green eyes. “Let’s see how well you can beg.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so for anyone wondering what the fck a chinchinzle is, I went around the internet trying to find a mythical creature known for being stubborn and I happened upon this Amino for a creature someone made called a stubbornicle. It was a really cute creature and I liked the idea, but the name is just... I can't take it seriously. So, since it looked like a mix between an chinchilla and a kneazle to me I mashed the words together until I got something I liked.
> 
> Here's the [link](https://aminoapps.com/c/harry-potter/page/blog/my-magical-creature-stubbornicles/pbTQ_uKEnxQKPeaKgYv5n0g3QK8kq) to the amino if you guys want to go check it out!
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Aare - servants (typically servants who serves out of duty or loyalty)  
> Magli - this is hopefully the plural to magl (маґл) which is the Ukranian translation for muggle. I got it off of the Harry Potter fandom wiki  
> Mii kiirre - my children  
> Mo'ah - maker  
> Mii anhmme - my darlings  
> (Mal) sos luni/ mii sos lun - my (little) blood leech  
> Muhnne - muggles
> 
> This chapter's recommendation is [_The Train to Nowhere_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/294722) by [MayMarlow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayMarlow/pseuds/MayMarlow). Guys, I have no words to describe just how amazing this fic is. It's already 69 chapters long and is planned to be 95. it deals with a world where Voldemort won the first wizarding war and brought about an age of pureblood supremacy, creature bigotry, and racism and how Harry deals with living - and trying to change - such a world. It obviously handles a lot of red flags regarding humanitarianism and there are also other triggering topics such as extreme depression, suicide, xenophobia, and oligarchism just to name a few. I would still encourage you to read the story if you can! It already has over 9000 kudos, if that tells you just how many people like it (which I technically know isn't always an accurate way to judge how good a story is on here).
> 
> And for anyone who stuck around till the end of my perpetually long winded author's note, my beta sent me a picture of an EOS lip balm the other day with just the word "him" underneath it and I didn't understand what they meant for almost the entire day until I remembered this fic and sent back, in all caps, "how dare you".


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